Re: Basque & Katzner's Languages of the World

On Thu, 15 Nov 2001, Nik Taylor wrote:

> Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> > In short, according to the accepted definition of an alphabet, Hangul is one.
>
> Well, if alphabet must be arbitrary shapes representing sounds, then
> yes.  But, seeing as how Hangul is based on phonetic principles, there
> is a kind of logic in calling it another category, "Featural code".  Of
> course, that would make a category with only one member.  :-)  So, I
> personally would also consider it an alphabet.
I have seen a half-quack description of the indic alphabet as a featural
code.  It worked for one or two of the letters, but not by any means for
all of them.  If I recall, the top line represented the hard pallet, and
the stem represented -- the back of the throat?

I dig featural codes.  I made one for a conlang I did in which it turned
out to be the most interesting bit of the conlang.  I'm working on another
one now, much more complex.

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Prurio modo viri qui in arbore pilosa est.
                        ~~Elvis

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