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

On Tue, May 03, 2005 at 11:47:29PM -0700, Sai Emrys wrote:
> Has anyone other than me attempted to make one, or theorized about how
> one would do so & the consequences thereof? I'm fairly sure this is
> true, but I can't find any examples thereof via Google..
Surely we have not already forgotten Pinuyo, the pictorial language,
created by one of our list members?

	http://www.ewoudnet.nl/ruittenb/pinuyo/

It may still be "somewhat" linear, in the sense that it can be
translated to a linear spoken language. However, you will see that
the kind of relations it expresses are really quite 2D.


> By "full-2d", what I mean is something akin to a thoughtweb - rather
> than a serialized / linear sequence of characters, it would
> interconnect concepts in 2d (or greater) space. For example, copular
> forms - equation, adjectives, subset, etc. - could probably all be
> written by connecting two (symbolic) ideas with a line of a particular
> kind, representing their relation.
If you look at Pinuyo, I'm sure you'll see that this is exactly how it
works.


[...]
> Comments / links / amazingly better and well-thought-out ideas?
[...]

I've been inspired by Pinuyo to work out more details of a third
writing system for Ebisédian (yes, sanokí is only one of them).
Although I haven't worked out the details yet, my conception of it is
that it is sorta like a picture, or diagram, that describes a story.
The Kings liked to etch this on their walls. Each part of the diagram
is recursively a sentence or clause or paragraph of some sort, and
they are all interconnected recursively at a 2D level. So the full
story can be read in many, many ways, depending on which order you
read the diagrams in.

As a rough example, consider the contrived story of a warrior hero who
killed a powerful beast. This central event occupies the topmost level
of the diagram. It could be organized with the left portion
representing the warrior, the top portion representing his legendary
sword, and the right portion the beast. In each of these portions,
there would be a full elaboration of who the corresponding actor is:
e.g., the left portion contains a sub-diagram that describes the
background of the warrior, his origins, his life story, his other
achievements, etc., each of which can be arranged in a circular
formation around the center of the left diagram. Each of these then is
further composed of more details: e.g., the origins section may have a
section describing his ancestry, perhaps with a list of ancestors and
any special events associated with them, and his hometown, and a brief
sketch of its origins (also arranged in various sections), etc..

All of these components can be highly-detailed elaborations of the
main story, and they are laid out in a non-linear fashion: you can
read them in any order and they would still convey the same meaning.
For example, you can start reading at the diagram that describes the
hometown of the warrior, then trace through the diagram describing the
ancestry of the warrior, perhaps detouring to the sub-diagram that
describes one of his more prominent ancestors, perhaps further
detouring to yet another sub-diagram that describes some event
associated with this ancestor, before you trace your way back to the
ancestry sub-diagram, and then perhaps to the main diagram where the
warrior performs his historic act of slaying the beast, and then
perhaps you'd meander up to the subdiagram describing his legendary
sword, looking up the sub-subdiagram that talks about its forging, its
forger, and *his* history, etc., etc.. You have an entire wall to
explore. It's like a huge jigsaw puzzle containing nested pieces.

You could, theoretically, translate the entire diagram into a single
8,000 word sentence in Ebisédian, after you decide what order to
traverse the various subdiagrams, etc.. But it would be more practical
to approach as a fully 2D integration of the main story plus all of
the people, events, and history associated with it.


T

--
We are in class, we are supposed to be learning, we have a teacher... Is it
too much that I expect him to teach me??? -- RL

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