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
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