Re: Optimum number of symbols

Any point in asking if there are any conlangers who have built scripts
similar to the Indian systems?  Monophonemic syllabary, representing
[character] + /a/, with subscripted or superscripted marking for the other
vowels, and including a postscripted letter to indicate /aa/?

Or something similar - I can imagine some constructed or retroconstructed
human species - homo habilis for example - having grave difficulty with /a/
and /e/ and /i/, while their lips wouldn't be flexible enough to handle the
rounding needed for full use of the remainder vowels.

Wesley Parish

On Mon, 20 May 2002 04:42, Raymond Brown wrote:
> We've recently been arguing whether an optimum number of root morphemes
> might be something like Dublex's 400 or Duton's 491 (I don't recall if
> Javier given a number for Futurese or not).  But what about the optimum
> number of _symbols_?
>
> Futurese, like most con-IALs, adopts the modern Roman alphabet (so do both
> current versions of BrSc); and there's been some argument whether that
> compromises Javier's aim of being culturally neutral or not.  But obviously
> the main reason for both Javier & myself adopting the Roman alphabet for
> our conlangs is pragmatic: that's what the majority of keyboards provide
> and we're still often restricted by ASCII.
>
> But nearly 40 years ago in "Language and Symbolic Systems", Yuen Ren Chao
> called the number of letters in the Roman alphabet 'paltry'.  In one place
> in the book, he wrote:
> "I often speculate whether an ideal system of writing would not be some
> golden mean between the unwieldy thousands of arbitrary units [of the
> Chinese characters] and the paltry few letters of the Latin alphabet.  To
> make a wild guess at an optimum number of symbols, if we take say the
> geometric mean between the number of letters of the Latin alphabet and the
> number of one of the sets of basic characters of 1000 or 1100, it will come
> out to a list of roughly 170 symbols, which seems to be a list of
> manageable size."
>
> Later in the book, in a chapter discussing the "10 requirements for good
> symbols", he writes:
> "Ideally, in the quest for a universal system of symbols, be it for the
> natural languages or for an artificial international language, we are bound
> to be pulled in various directions by the partially conflicting
> requirements, as we have been considering.   If vested interest could be
> discounted in favour of end efficiency, my guess for an ideal system of
> visual and auditory symbols for general purposes of speech and thought will
> involve neither the extreme paucity in elementary units nor the extreme
> luxury of thousands of them, but probably about 200 monosyllabic symbols,
> such that a string of "seven plus or minus two" of them can be easily
> grasped in one span of attention."
>
> I do not BTW understand the "200 monosyllabic symbols" to be the same as
> '200 monosyllabic root morphemes'.  In neither of these passage does he
> mention morphemes.  But the second paragraph quoted would seem to me to
> suggest a phonology of 200 basic monosyllables.
>
> Obviously, 200 simple symbols would make for greater compactness than the
> 26 letters of the Roman alphabet [or the approx. 70 symbols used by Lin]
>
> :)
>
> Most westerners seem to take it for granted that a script where each
> grapheme = 1 phoneme is best, i.e. an alphabet of a some 'paltry few' 20 to
> 30+ symbols.  That view is clearly not universal.  It would interesting to
> know if Hanuman Zhang regards our Roman/Latin script as paltry; and Mathias
> has shown a healthy questioning of western assumptions.
>
> So:
> 1. What is the optimum number of symbols?
> 2. If the optimum number is in the hundreds (or thousands!), what would
> each symbol represent?
>
> I know some artlangers have devised their own scripts.
> 3. Have such scripts been alphabetic (like JRRT's Tengawr and Dwarvish
> runes), or have you used some other system?
> 4. Were you motivated by any thoughts of 'optimality' or just doing it for
> the fun of creating?
>
> Finally:
> 5. Have any designers of auxlangs and/or engelangs devised a special set of
> symbols for their languages? If so, why?
>
> Ray (in questioning mode)
>
>
>
>
>
>
> =======================================================
> Speech is _poiesis_ and human linguistic articulation
> is centrally creative.
>                                  GEORGE STEINER.
> =======================================================
--
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."

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