Re: Divergent Scripts

Zesefde Arthaey Angosii  <arthaey@...> ta 2002.08.30. her 16:04:16 -7h:

> I'd like to know how believable/likely it would be for them to develop two
> totally different scripts that were both originally based on an alphabetic
> script. I want one of the scripts to remain alphabetic, but I want the
> second script to be like Chinese (what's this called? logographic?). I
> don't know the history of how/when/why the Chinese characters got a
> Latin-alphabet tranliteration equivalent... could someone fill me in? Do I
> need to have two geographically separated groups of Asha'illens for one of
> them to create a logographic script from an alphabetic one?
>
Well my cats use a simple hieroglyphic system which is like Egyptian and I simply
just can love it. It's (at least for me) simple, compact and beautiful. For
example: I translated an A5 page written in Hungarian to the quarter of a page
of the same size - with the same character size of course. And even this was in
the old Long Wer which was very elaborately isolating. My system is using
syllabe signs but every syllabe can be used as an ideogram and has its own
meaning. There's a class of signs which can't be used a syllabe sign because it
indicates an ending. There's an alphabet too but it's only used for foreign
words or words that can't be exactly written with syllabe signs. There's about
250 normal glyphs, 30-35 alphabetic sign and around 50 ideogram. But in a word
it's possible to leave out some vowels just like in Egyptian (of course there's
an exact rule for it). it was not developed but invented, originally for
shortening the elaborately isolating archaic Meyadhew. (!
An because they sticked to their dialect and the system invented directly for it,
they lingually isolated from Meyadhew and their variant lang became a new
language.)
So I think a logographic system can be very useful but mainly for one who a)
learned it from the beginning and is a native speaker of the lang b) has a true
love of that script (like me and Egyptian hieroglyphs) and take the trouble to
learn it.
Well, taking the Chinese example, if there's a people with many different languages,
ideograms can be helpful. Or just if you want to create a veeeeery elaborate
and/or veeeeery beautiful script. ;) But I don't recommend to create a system
with signs more than 500-1000. No one will ever learn it in our precipitant and
lazy world :(

> Also, I really like having fonts for my conscripts. With an alphabetic
> script it's very simple for me to make a font, but I don't know where to
> start with a logographic one. Seems that however computers deal with
> Chinese would work for me. How do you type Chinese characters? What are the
> fonts like?
Well, I don't know how chinese characters are written. But I know that creating a
logographic font(s) is long and tearing. Believe me, I speak from experience.
I've just finished my Long Wer font (actually 4 files because I deal with the
signs that can appear at the bottom of the line too as two different signs. An
even there are signs that canm appear 5 different position in the line. I'm
proud of it. And I'm dead beat for it. :) (and well, some of the ideograms are
still missing).
--
Mau
Ábrahám Zsófia alias Mau Rauszer
    |  http://www.hiaqimau.tk  |
"Yú lawe ta mau taqe yibali amis qi ú neb dagu tawiy iq." -- Kipling