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Re: made-to-order alphabets

From:Christophe Grandsire <grandsir@...>
Date:Tuesday, September 28, 1999, 7:12
Adam Parrish wrote:
> > Quick question on ordering schemes for alphabets: is it > necessary to have one? For some reason it strikes me that the Talin (the > writing system for Doraya) doesn't really have any particular "order," > and that the thought of sequencing them would seem odd to the speakers > of Doraya. Is it a required thing for alphabetic systems to have a > perceived "order"? Does something similar happen in other writing > systems (e.g., syllabaries)? >
Well, an order can be useful for dictionnaries and indexes, as well as for libraries, and a common order is better in that case than defining an order for each book released (it saves time). That's the only reason for having a perceived order (simply a common order used by everyone). As for other writing systems, I know that syllabaries are generally also ordered in a way or another, and that Chinese ideograms are at least ordered by number of strokes and by keys I think. I don't know how this order works exactly though.
> Curious, > Adam > ----------------------------. > myth@inquo.net | > http://www.inquo.net/~myth/ | > ----------------------------'
-- Christophe Grandsire Philips Research Laboratories -- Building WB 145 Prof. Holstlaan 4 5656 AA Eindhoven The Netherlands Phone: +31-40-27-45006 E-mail: grandsir@natlab.research.philips.com