Re: Optimum number of symbols

"Mike S." wrote:
> I have to say I find it puzzling that syllabaries in general--
> not referring to the featural sorts you have described--have
> been so consistently vaunted for their learnability, particularly
> by westerners.  If I want to learn a new language, I'd much rather
> have it use an alphabet, or a script that has phonemelike features.
For what it's worth, I've found kana easier to learn than vowelled
Arabic when I attempted it.  But, then again, Arabic has the additional
complication of connected letters, which makes the comparison not so
good.  I can see a hiragana _ka_ and instantly recognize /ka/, but I'd
have to connect an Arabic _t_ with the _a_ diacritic to make /ta/.

At any rate, an alphabet would probably be easier to learn, all else
being equal, for someone who's ALREADY learned the concept of the
alphabet.

> Second is the possibility of a more efficient writing system.
Incidentally, how are you defining efficiency in this context?  Ease of
writing, speed of writing, ease of recognition, conciseness of writing?
Which definition you use would affect which system you find most
efficient.  Logograms, for example, are the most efficient in terms of
conciseness, and they have advantages of recognition, especially between
languages.  For example, a Japanese person who knows some Chinese
grammar can get the general gist of something written in Chinese because
of his recognition of kanji.

Japanese's use of multiple readings gives another advantage, a foreign
word can be written by using the kanji that approximate its meaning and
katakana to approximate its pronunciation.  However, the difficulty of
learning, IMO, outweighs those advantages.  However, it is attractive to
me, and I fully intend to create a logographic script some day.

Also, there's a number of kanji that I know the meaning of but can't
remember the readings for.  :-)

--
"There's no such thing as 'cool'.  Everyone's just a big dork or nerd,
you just have to find people who are dorky the same way you are." -
overheard
ICQ: 18656696
AIM Screen-Name: NikTaylor42