> [...] Westerners have spoken languages that are different
> though related and just ONE system of writing. And to me that means the
> written language MUST be an ideographic one whose systems don't relate in
> the slightest to the spoken system.
Sorry, but this isn't true.
What the Western languages MUST share for a single system of writing to be viable is a shared grammatical structure. Latin, Vulgate Latin, and the Romance proto-languages (ie local dialects) are a good example of such. The Art of Rhetoric was drilled into youth so that all good language was produced according to the rules of Latin grammar (more or less based on the Greek), and according to Latin phrasal structures.
In the Malkioni West then, the Art of Rhetoric and the rules of Grammar are IMO derived from the Brithini. Whether the written form of words corresponds to local pronunciation or not is immaterial, since the educated, ie the litterate, will be constructing their speech and writing according to the old Malkioni system, which is identical (with minor variations) throughout the West. Cultural pressure ensures that these structures of thought descend to the villeins, too. When reading from Scripture, it is an easy task for a wizard to make the Word understandable to all, and to pronounce the Brithini text according to local custom.
The fact that Brithini is an immutable living language (now there's a nice paradox!) makes this feasible in the Gloranthan West.
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