Re: Non-linear / full-2d writing systems?

On Fri, 6 May 2005 01:11:15 +0100, Tim May <butsuri@...> wrote:

>J. 'Mach' Wust wrote at 2005-05-05 19:13:37 (-0400)
> > On Thu, 5 May 2005 13:25:37 -0700, Sai Emrys <saizai@...> wrote:
> >
> >
> > >merely because it hasn't been done before in a natural
> > >language. If you can argue that there is something to the *idea*
> > >that is impractical, impossible, or unsuited to human cognition,
> > >that would be an interesting argument. But your argument is
> > >essentially that it is not a code as [nearly] all other writing
> > >systems are... and that's a chiken-and-egg.
> >
> > It's a question of how the terms are defined. With my linguistical
> > background, I'm used to think of language as primary communication
> > system of humans that can be observed either as speech (spoken
> > language) or as writing (written language).
> >
>
>I think what's being overlooked in this discussion is sign language,
>which is accepted as language by most linguists despite having nothing
>to do with speech.  By analogy, it's at least possible to imagine an
>exclusively written language.
No I haven't, as you will see in my first message to this topic.

That's another reason why I prefer the term "language" instead of "speech",
since it embraces both the vocal and the signed varieties. Of course there
are exclusively written languages. Today, Latin is (almost) exclusively
written, for instance, and so are most languages created here. There are
more exclusively spoken languages, I guess.

kry@s:
j. 'mach' wust

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