Re: THEORY Ideal system of writing

Quoting Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>:


>
> My two sets of questions are:
> A. Do you agree that the ideal set of symbols to express language is in
> the region of 170 to 200? If not, why not and what do you consider to be
> the ideal number of symbols?
Yes and no and maybe. :p

If we want a script that can handle _any_ language, I think we're best off with
an alphabet, and the biggest phoneme inventories being in about that range, it
follows we need that many letters. We'll also want some interpunctuation, and
probably some ideograms, like number symbols.

If it's about the ideal writing system for a particular language, the answer
will be, in general, no - imagine writing Rotokas (35 distinct syllables) with
170+ characters! Unless there's phonological constraints that push the number
of two-syllable combos _way_ below 1225 it will be an ungodly mess (and I
cannot really imagining there being such constraints the number of distinct
utterances of sensible length would be pitifully low*).

If it's about the ideal writing system _for a language ideally suited to
writing_, I shall confess to having no idea.

* What's the number of distinct two-syllable sequences in English? Gotta be in
the millions.

It's worth mentioning that all the suggestions for an English syllabary in this
thread do considerable violence to the core idea of a syllabary - one syllable
= one character. The harsh truth is that for a language of a "European" style,
it sucks having unconnected written representations of "dream", "dreams" and
"dreamt". Since, apparently, all ex nihilo inventions of writing systems have
resulted in approximately syllabic systems, one gotta wonder if writing could
arise in a language community which speaks a such language.

> B. Obvously, 170 to 200 is too small an inventory for all the morphemes of
> a language, yet it seems rather high for a syllabary. Y.R. Chao does not
> elaborate on what each of the 170 to 200 symbols would represent, except
> the brief reference to monosyllables in (3). Any ideas?
Four options, basically:

1) Alphabetic system for a Khoisan language (well, an abugida or abjad, possibly
with mandatory vowel marks, should work about as well).

2) Syllabary for a language with a reasonable number of syllables. English,
!Kung and Rotokas are emphatically _not_ examples of such languages. I guess
Japanese's syllable count is about in that range, but, no, they had to betray
the syllabic ideal with funky indications of long vowels.

3) An onset-rhyme system as someone suggested.

4) An alphabet with additional signs to indicate common sequences. Latin and
Greek, of course, already does this - 'x', xi, psi - but our hypothetical
script here would have dozens of them. I rather like this idea, because it's
conceptually an unprincipled mess! :) It would work well for "European-style"
languages, too, which is a plus, since I figure those most likely to try and
introduce an ideal writing system would be auxlangers, and we all know what
kind of languages they tend to create!

5) Newspeak! Restrict the number of morphemes to 200 - the underlings need no
way to express the idea of "rights" anyway!

(Is there a term for what I here tentatively call "European-style" languages? I
mean ones with complex syllable structures (English has several times more
distinct syllables than Rotokas has distinct bisyllabic sequences!) and a
propensity for indicating grammatical distinctions with subsyllabic affixes or
stem changes, making them highly unsuited for purely syllabic writing.)

                                                      Andreas

Replies