Re: Names in a non-linear full-2d writing system

On Friday, May 13, 2005, at 07:04 , Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:

> Ray Brown skrev:
>
>> How does one devise proper name logograms?
>
> How would it be different from other logograms?
> After all most names do have a meaning, even if
> we have forgotten them.  The ancients as a rule
> hadn't.
Tho the meaning of even some ancient names is not known - and a lot of
modern given names in the anglophone world, at least, are simply nonce
coinages with no reference to meaning.

How many of us wonder if every Philip we meet really does like horse?    :
-)

Do we have the same logogram for John, Sean, Ifan, Ieuan, Ia(i)n, Juan,
Jean, Giovanni, Johan, Hans, etc., etc ?
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On Friday, May 13, 2005, at 07:08 , Andreas Johansson wrote:
[snip]
> I'd contend that many westerners' signatures are logograms already. :)
True.
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On Saturday, May 14, 2005, at 01:02 , Remi Villatel wrote:

> Ray Brown wrote:
>
>>> Why should one's name by phonetic?
It was Sai who wrote that.

> Maybe just to be able to say "[Insert name here] did this or that"?
Yes, it is a possibility. I guess till we see an example of a NLF2DWS we
won't be able to judge how well it would work.

Thinks: How would telepathic beings name one another?

[snip]
>> As for wanting a phonetic sub-orthography in a non-linear semasiographic
>> fully 2d writing system, _I_ have expressed no such wish. I just queried
>> why Remi said " And it makes you feel like an Egyptian when it comes to
>> proper names.." It must imply that you might be phoneticizing proper
>> names.
>
> I just wish I had kept my mouth shut. Any way, I was talking about
> egyptian
> cartouches because Sai suggested to fuse the words of my semagrams into a
> single 2D glyph. When I thought about proper names, I thought immediatly
> about a rather phonetic way to write them, like an egyption cartouche, for
> example. I didn't say "for example" and the whole thread went nuts about
> Ancient Egypt and Pharaos.
I do not recall one single reference to any pharaoh, let alone pharaohs.
Could you remind me where the thread went nuts about a pharaoh?

[snip]
> By the way, just one question: Aren't we all following our way toward a
> 2D-IAL? I feel that we want our 2dWS to be so universal that it will end
> up
> being just like an IAL.
Nope - at least *not* in the sense of writing a speakable IAL. Indeed,
what other people are doing with 2d writing between now and June 30th, I
suspect is quite varied.

What I understand Sai to envisage - and what I've gradually got more
interested with - is a NLF2DWS which represents _thought_ - the way
telepathic beings might record things.

OK - if this were successful, then of course it could serve as a
_pasigraphy_. But it will not relate directly to any spoken language;
there will be no IAL linearization. When people 'read' it off in a spoken
form they will use whatever natlang they feel appropriate for themselves
and their listeners.

>> How does one devise proper name logograms?
>
> You take a sheet of paper, a pencil and you draw one. You can also hire a
> professional to create your personal logo, but it won't be cheap.  ;-)
Rather unhelpful remarks. In any case, unless _parents_ do that, kids will
have no names!

OK - I worded the question badly. Indeed, the choice of the word logogram
itself is bad. This presupposes that names will be written as logograms. I
should have made no such presupposition.

Indeed, it seems to me that ideograms would be more appropriate. They are
not, as I have explained in a recent email, the same thing as logograms.
But even the use of ideograms is making a presupposition.

The question would be better phrased thus:
"How does one deal with proper names in a non-linear semasiographic fully
2d writing scheme?"

On reflexion, this is not the most important question. Quite possibly if
such a writing scheme is devised, the the way to deal with proper names
will become more obvious.

Ray
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ray.brown@freeuk.com
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"A mind which thinks at its own expense will always
interfere with language."         J.G. Hamann, 1760