flowing script (erat: Thought and Language)

> > On Thu, 17 Dec 1998, Nik Taylor wrote:
> >
> > [snip]
> > > On a related note, has anyone here invented a flowing script like Arabic
> > > or our cursive, where all the letters are joined?  I find that very hard
> > > to invent, and have given up several times.
I did one many years ago -- age 13 ca.! -- which was definitely
unbeautiful, then again one when I got dissatisfied with the shorthand
system I was using at the time and started to investigate the theory of
shorthand construction.  I came across one system which had all signs that
were not actually squiggles or curves *on* the base line start and end on
the base line.  I developed a more non-shorthand script, with fewer
distinctions based only on relative dimensions of similar shapes, no single
signs for "clusters", no pen-pressure distinctions etc. on the same
principles -- principles which anyway differ from most shorthand systems,
which don't care about words lying on a line at all, ant thus inherently
less short, since the "short" in "shorthand" refers to time, not to length
on paper.  What I retained was the principle of all strokes being
meaningful; ordinary Roman handwriting involves a mass of joining strokes,
which serve no other purpose than allowing the pen to stay on the paper
while moving from one letter-shape to the next, and this shows.  Arabic has
much less of this, with one important exception: the final strokes used on
final and isolated letters.  I didn't find my project very successful
though, and besides I was too caught up at the time in designing a
shorthand, so I didn't stay at the designing or use the script very long.