Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Devanagari handwriting?

From:Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Date:Wednesday, December 8, 2004, 21:50
Pascal A. Kramm wrote:
> They just bear it, same as with amny other over-complicated thing in > Sanskrit not found in most other languages (e.g. dual case).
I suspect your contributions to the list would be better received if you could avoid the embedded value judgements. Sanskrit was at one time a living language, which developed naturally by the same process as modern English, French, German, etc; it's not as if someone sat down to design it and threw in all these "over-complicated" features out of some misplaced aesthetic goal. And of course, speakers don't really "just bear" the most onerous features of their language; those are exactly the features which are modified with each new generation and eventually evolve out of the language's descendants, replaced by something that is in some sense "simpler" (but which may result in other added complexities). Writing systems are a separate beast from language, though they are subject to similar constraints and simplifying tendencies over time. In any case, the Hindi writers I know are able to write it at least as fluidly and quickly as I write English; the overline is added as an afterthought, much the way I dot my 'i's and cross my 't's. I'm just impressed at how well everything lines up - but then, handwriting on unlined paper is for me an exercise in keeping non-parallel lines from intersecting. :) -Marcos