Neo-cuneifoem (was: Optimum number of symbols)

At 7:51 pm +0100 21/5/02, Tim May wrote:
>Raymond Brown writes:
[snip]
> > Yes, I've always entertained the idea at the back of my mind of using some
> > sort of cuneiform script at sometime. Cuneiform scripts were around for
> > well over three thousand years and were used for a variety of systems, so
> > there must've been something going for them.
> >
>Wouldn't that be "the use of clay tablets as a medium for writing"?
No.

>Cuneiform's great for that, but possibly not so good for other media,
>where you're drawing lines rather then imprinting them.
I understand they also looked pretty good carved in stone.  But I was
thinking in terms of printing on paper - where IMO they also look good.  It
shouldn't be very difficult to generate them digitally.
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At 3:01 pm -0400 21/5/02, Paul Bennett wrote:
[snip]
>
>Funny you should mention that. I'm working on a script that
>is to Cuneiform as Demotic is to Egyptian, and written with
>a pen or brush, to boot.
Yes, that's the sort of thing I had in mind.

Clearly in ordinary handwriting one wouldn't produce characters like
printed cuneiform (unless, as Tim observed, you used clay and wedge :)

Some sort of handwriten form would've developed for writing on paper -
maybe with a bush in earlier times but now, surely, with a (ball-point)
pen.

>Just thought I'd start participating early.
Well, in the neo-cuneiform develoment of the thread, at least :)

Welcome back to the list.

Ray.





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Speech is _poiesis_ and human linguistic articulation
is centrally creative.
                                 GEORGE STEINER.
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