Re: Optimum number of symbols

Raymond Brown wrote:
> 1. What is the optimum number of symbols?
I'd say it would depend on the language.  A language with a simple
phonology and simple syllables is well-suited to a syllabry, but a
language like English with a more complex phonology would be impossible
to have a syllabry, altho a syllabic alphabet might work, or perhaps
using symbols to represent common consonant clusters.  So, say, one
symbol per phoneme plus symbols for things like "st", "sp", "sk", "sn"
"sl" "fl" "tr" "str", etc., as well as "kt", "ks", "lp", etc.  That
would probably number a couple hundred or so, just as a guesstimate.

> 3. Have such scripts been alphabetic (like JRRT's Tengawr and Dwarvish
> runes), or have you used some other system?
Uatakassi uses a slightly modified syllabry.  What I mean by slightly
modified is that there are characters for V, CV and CLV, as well as for
L by itself (due to historical reasons; there's no special phonetic
quality of that l), plus diacritics for the codas -s, -z, -f, -v, -n,
and gemination.  Combinations of Ci + V characters are used for CyV and
Cu + V for CwV.  There are also a set of ligatures used to indicate
syllables that have developed fairly recently, when /tS/ /dZ/ and /C/
split off as distinct phonemes from their original phonemes /t/ /d/ and
/k/.  /ti/ /di/ and /ki/ are now contrasting with /tSi/ /dZi/ and /Ci/
(they're usually realized as [tsi] [dzi] and [ki]), ligatures of the -a
set of those consonants plus _i_.

Chúju, its descendant, uses a kind of hybrid of a syllabry, syllabic
alphabet, and pure alphabet derived from the Kassi syllabry

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