Re: What is an alphabet? Re: Optimum number of symbols

In a message dated 05/29/2002 06.07.40 AM, the much-esteemed John Cowan
(jcowan@REUTERSHEALTH.COM) writes:

>The romanization of Zhuang (a Tai language of China) is interesting in
>this respect.  Standard Zhuang has six tones, which are written using
>special tonal letters.  AFAICT tone 1 has no special letter.
>Tone 2 is written with a reversed s, tone 3 with Cyrillic ZHE, tone 4
>with Cyrillic CHE, tone 5 with a sort of Gaelic-style G, and tone 6
>with a Cyrillic hard sign.  If you squint at these, they look like the
>digits 2-6 respectively.
    ::linguavore drooling:: ===>  :P~~~
    Intriguing. I wonder who came up with that system of Romanization and
when... 0_o? From your description, it seems like it's possibly a very nice,
simple user-friendly system besides perhaps having a certain orthographic
elegance.
    And is there more info on Zhuang (anywhere easily accessible)?

Hanuman Zhang {HANoomaan JAHng} /'hanuma~n  dZahN/

~§~

_Ars imitatur Naturam in sua operatione._ <from Latin> = "Art is the
imitation of Nature in her manner of operation." " The most beautiful order
is a heap of sweepings piled up at random." ~ Heraclitus, c. 500 BCE

~§~ jinsei to iu mono wa, kinchou na geijyutsu to ieru deshou ~§~
<from Japanese> = lit. "one can probably say that 'life' is a precious
artform")

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