Re: Divergent Scripts

CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU writes:
>Interesting.  I don't know of any case, historically, of an alphabetic
>(or other phonetic) writing system becoming logographic, although it's
>several times gone the other way.  Any specific thoughts on how this
>would have come about?
I dont think it's that likely an alphabetic script would go towards a
logograpic one. Speakers would probably think: "The alphabet is so simple,
why would we want to make it more complex?". Of course i've read that
english words are *somewhat* ( note: i never said they are, so don't jump
on me for that :)), logographic, but that's due to the way things are
spelled.

Even if the to be created script were like that, if there was an alphabet,
i'm sure the speakers would drop the logographic one in favor of the
alphabetic *unless* the logographic script helps to clarify homonyms
(which is why kanji are so useful with Japanese, being there many homonyms
in that language)


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