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

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.

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