Re: Chinese writing systems

Mat McVeagh wrote:
> Syllabaries were an improvement, and alphabets a further improvement.
Alphabets weren't derived from syllabries.  The alphabet came from an
abjad (a script which marks only consonants), which in turn was derived
from a logographic script.

> Obviously it would be in the interests of all these peoples to move on from
> it too. Especially Japanese, which could replace three systems with one.
Well, if Japanese were to eliminate the kanji, the most logical option
for it would not be an alphabet (whether Roman or otherwise), but pure
hiragana (or perhaps both kana).  The kana, if you add word spaces,
represent Japanese nearly perfectly (the only minor improvement that
could be made would be a mark of accent), and is more compact than an
alphabet, in that it requires, on average, half as many characters as
romanization.

--
"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