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Re: Con-scripts

From:Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>
Date:Thursday, June 21, 2001, 16:46
Chrsitophe Grandsire wrote:
>En réponse à Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>: > > > > > Are the differences in orthography a matter of religious controversy, > > then? :-) > > > >No, as long as only the already existing ideograms (there's a limited >number of >them, but I cannot remember how many :) ) are used. The Sky People consider >writing not as a way to keep things on stone or paper (except for >ornamental >value), but as a reminder of things you learn by heart. I mean that, at >least in >the time I describe the Sky People, they value memory more than writing. So >everything has to be learnt by heart, and writings are there only for help >to >remind people of what they've learnt. Thus writing needn't be accurate, as >long >as the principal things to be reminded (the stems) are accurately >representated. >So the quarrels between the different writing schools are rather about what >is >best to trigger memory: phonetic writing, semantic writing, or a mix of >both. > >Is there any example of a human civilisation that has writing but values >more >learning by heart and uses writing only as a mean to help and refresh >memory >when needed?
Didn't that Incan "knot-writing" system work something like that? Andreas _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.