Re: Latin mxedruli, or do we really need capital and small letters?

On Wednesday, May 26, 2004, at 09:50 AM, Peter Bleackley wrote:

> Staving Javier BF:
>> [Danny Wier]
>>
>> > > 1) If your conlangs are written in two-case
>> > > alphabets/abjads/syllabries, what are the rules?
>>
>> It just occurred to me: Could a case be made for a higher-
>> than-two-case system, say, a three-case system with uppercase,
>> lowercase and 'middlecase'?  Come to think of it, in a way
>> that's what we actually have already... counting small caps!
>> Any idea for a four-case system?
>>
>
> I've got an idea for a six-case system
> Sentence-initial
> Word-initial
> Medial
> Word-final
> Sentence-final
> Proper Names.
Yikes - no paragraph-initial and no paragraph-final cases!! You'll have to
use white space!

Yep - what gain is there in this except that you'll be able to write whole
paragraphs without white spaces? But IMO it's main effect will be to
increase the burden on learners of the language (and possibly make reading
more difficult).

White space, as far as I see it, is pretty good at marking word initial,
word medial and word final in one go (same as indentation and/or blank
line is a fairly good paragraph delimiter).

If only the full-stop/period was a little more substantial than an itsy
bitsy dot, the sentence initial and sentence final would not need a
different case. In fact, ancient Greek texts (and often now ancient Latin
texts) are habitually printed with lower-case sentence initial and I've
never experienced any problem in reading these.

Proper names - yep, it is useful for learners of a language to have these
marked. But this can be done (and in some systems is done) by using a
written sign (like a diacritic or punctuation mark).

IMO our dual-case system is itself an unnecessary burden on youngsters
like my 4-year old granddaughter who is now learning to get to grips
reading & writing our strange English orthography.

To answer the question in the subject line: No, we do not really need
capital and small letters. That is clearly proved by the many writing
systems such systems.

IMO a 'Latin mxedruli', would be a 'good thing' (or even just ditching
upper case).

Ray
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