Re: Optimum number of symbols

En réponse à "Mike S." <mcslason@...>:

>
> It may surprise you to know, but I mostly had English in mind when
> I made that statement.  I *am* sorry for bringing French into it.
> I was very impressed by your thorough defense of French orthography
> though.
>
Thanks! Well, I can understand people who consider the French orthography to be
a nightmare. It took me a long time myself to realise the advantages it brought.

>
> Perhaps you've missed some of the recent posts, but thanks to Nik,
> And, Raymond, Thomas and others, I have *refined* my position.
True. Sorry that I mislook it.

>
> I feel that many different systems are viable, but especially if
> they encode phoneme-level information--which it seems, many if not
> most scripts do.  However, although several systems may work for any
> given language, it is clear that only one basic type of system will
> work for all of them, and that's the alphabet.  Because no other
> system can make this claim, it's reasonable to ask, what is it about
> alphabets that makes them special?  The reason that the alphabet
> is a *universal* system, I believe, is that the alphabet represents
> the distillation of the phonemic principle.
>
The problem lies in your definition of "working". If "working" means that any
language can be represented with an alphabet, then you can say the same of any
kind of script. However clumsy it may be, you can represent any language with a
syllabary, an alphabet, an abjad, ideograms, or whatever you want. It may
features thousands of characters, but you can do it, even with non-featural
scripts. So where is the supposed superiority of the alphabet? That it can do
that with a minimum of characters? True, but often at the expense of
readability, compared to other systems (especially if you make it featural). In
short, the alphabet is no more universal than any other system. The only true
advantage you can give to alphabets is that they need the smallest number of
different characters. Unfortunately, it is now known that it doesn't make much
of a difference for people whether they have to learn 20 characters or 100.

> Thus, I do claim that alphabets will work *well* for all languages,
> and considering that all languages can, at least in practice, be
> analyzed into a phoneme inventory (or something quite similar),
> it should be self-evident that alphabets *can* do the job--always.
That's the problem. I probably have another opinion on this *well*. To me,
doing the job with few characters is not enough to be considered *well* done,
and I can't find any other advantage for many languages.

> I do *not* claim, however, that an alphabet will do the *best* job.
> IMO, most of the other systems actually represent *elaborations*
> of the alphabet, which is the distilled principle.  And since these
> other systems give the opportunity to be tailored specifically
> to the landscape of a particular language and/or take better
> advantage, arguably, of the syllabic level of analysis, it may
> well prove in many cases that the alphabet is actually sub-optimal.
> But if your life depends on selecting a system that will work
> well for language X, I recommend that you choose an alphabet.
>
I won't take that advice. I'm too attached to my life! ;)))

>
> As far as your claims of Mandarin resisting phonemic analysis,
> I must admit that is news to me.  I would be *very* interested to
> learn more though.
>
Well, I'm not a specialist, but I've read about Mandarin being extremely
difficult to analyse beyond the level of the syllable. The interaction between
the proposed phonemes are so strong that the very notion of phoneme loses all
value in the analysis.

>
> My point was only that sometimes it isn't true.  Would you disagree?
>
Yes. And my conviction comes from years of education as an engineer and a
scientist. Except maybe in mathematics (and even then it's not so sure), you'll
never find a true hierarchy. Each advantage a system brings over another is
always counterbalanced by some handicap. And it depends on the context to know
whether the advantage is enough to take the handicap with it or not.

>
> If this were true, I would not have modified my position in recent
> days.
>
Well, your position has not changed much, and IMHO still reflects your habits.

>
> It's not quite like that.  I do have reasons for my positions, not
> just sentiment.  If I hear other, better reasons, I will change my
> view
> accordingly, as I already have.  In the meantime, as long as I have
> a reasoned argument, I see no reason why I must shy away from my
> position out of a superstitious fear of the "absolute point of view".
>
Well, your reasons didn't convince me at least. I just find your arguments not
so reasoned.

>
> I don't quite agree.  First of all, alphabets are not nearly
> universally
> used.  Secondly, the only people we gave an alphabet were the people
> who did not have any writing at all.  The Japanese, Chinese, etc. all
> still have their indigenous non-alphabetic writing systems.
>
True. Still, most Japanese and Chinese people learn at least the Roman alphabet
someday. You cannot say that every one using an alphabet ever learns a
syllabary. That's what I meant by the universal *use* of alphabets.

> Furthermore, I doubt it was ever very likely that morphemic systems
> were going to become universally used, and that's not just because
> the Chinese didn't take over the world.  I do happen to have the view
> that some systems, just possibly, might tend to work better than
> others, on average.
>
And I think that it's absolutely false, and that both history and reasoned
arguments back up my position. But I already made myself clear enough I
think :)) .

>
> Evolution goes both ways, but in the field of technology, the
> accumulative effect (two steps forward, one step back) goes towards
> progress.  Technology builds on itself, and who knows where it will
> end.  Writing is a technology.
That's where I disagree. The parallel between writing and technology is very
far-fetched in my opinion. It's like paralleling language and other social
constructions like government or family. There is a link, but you cannot equal
them. Writing is not a full technology, and doesn't obey the same laws. Anyway,
as an engineer, I even have doubts about the accumulative effect going towards
progress. I again see the advantages and the drawbacks. When the advantages
grow, the drawbacks tend to grow too. Is that a progress? I doubt it. Not that
I think that we should revert back to older days, but that we shouldn't think
that advancement means progress. They are two very different things that have
nothing to do with each other.

  It was developed by people who had
> a need for it.  But it was not easy to develop; it took centuries.
> Along the way, there had to be innovations.  The Greek vowel letter
> is a good example of that.  IMO, it's an error to imagine that
> the Greeks' development of vowel letters had anything to do with
> international relations.  They developed the vowel because the Greek
> language *needed* it.
No. They developped the vowel because someone got suddenly the idea of using
full characters to mark also the vocalic sounds, and others found that it was
not such a bad idea. There was no such compelling need, except the fact that
they had borrowed a script that was particularly unfit for their language. This
triggered the appearance of the vowel, not the fact that the language
absolutely needed it. Cyprus kept its syllabary long after the Greek alphabet
was invented and didn't have any problem with it. They didn't have to use or
develop an alphabet because the script they had was not doing a bad job. It's
the inadequcy of the script first borrowed by the Greeks that triggered the
invention of the vowel, not an absolute need from it.

  And the result was a change in the world
> of writing forever, for *all* languages, including the less vowel-
> rich ones.  That was an *improvement*--or technological evolution,
> or whatever you prefer to call it.
>
That's where I disagree. What did the vowel improve? Thinking? I'm sorry, but
while Greek thinkers were deep in their mythologies and superstitions, Chinese
thinkers were already developing effective forms of medecine. Writing systems
themselves? No, sorry, I don't see an improvement, just a variation on a
system. The Indian grammarians already had a good view of phonetic phenomena
despite a non-alphabetic script, and they understood the phoneme much better
than the Greeks ever did, without the need for an alphabet using full vowels.
The only reason why true alphabets became important is the fact that Greece
influenced strongly Rome, which is the basis of the modern Western society,
which in turn is pretty much the center of the world today. In the same way,
Most Asian societies adopted logographic systems are systems derived from
logographic systems because of the influence of China on them, not any other
reason. The same with India and influenced societies which took abugidas.

> In case this has been unclear, I wish to state that I am in the
> process of writing a loglang.  As such, I am approaching language
> design more from the engelang, as opposed to artlang, perspective.
> In engineering, it is a matter of course to quantify, measure,
> and compare things.  Thus, none of what I post is intended to have
> any bearing whatsoever on the value of artistic creations represented
> by artlangs, where such things as performance and efficiency are
> at best, very distant secondary concerns to the primary concerns
> of aesthetics and creative exploration.
>
I had understood that, and didn't argue against it. I just can't think think of
language like an engineer (like a mecanician yes, but not like an engineer),
but I won't say that it's impossible.

> I enjoyed your post actually, and I hope this clarifies for you
> my position on alphabets for you.  Again, I am sorry for speaking
> about written French.  In the future I will endeavor to keep
> my disparaging remarks limited to my own native tongue.
>
I think I understand your position quite clearly. As you have probably guessed
I disagree strongly with it, and I have forged my opinion after a long time of
thinking about it and many other things (I was very good in philosophy
classes :)) ). This said, I have no problem with us disagreeing. Different
experiences make diferent opinions, and there is no possibility in my opinion
to know which one is better than the other. I'm not even sure such a statement
would be even meaningful :)) . So don't take my e-mail as an attempt to
convince you of anything, but just as a way to clarify my opinion. You're free
to do whatever you want with the information I give you, even ignore it :)) .

And I must say that your posts have been very interesting too. I missed none of
them, even if by lack of time I sometimes read them a bit too fast for my
taste :(( .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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