Right. (Though current Brithini might be an Inferior Version of the language, since we only have Inferior Brithini these days, at least in the Inner World.)
> But the book don't say that the script is the written version of
> Brithini but that it's what the Brithini and everyone else uses.
This is true, but it implies strongly that the two are closely related to the point of being the same:
"Most scholars believe that the standardised written language of Western is derived from the Brithini spoken tongue, though the Brithini claim the opposite."
(I think we can take it that "opposite means "converse" here, rather than "negation"!)
Given the general Malkioni opinion of the Brithini, calling it "Western" or "Church Malkioni", or whatever rather than "Brithini" seems a sound tactic.
> Well, really only that it is the least elegant solution. When did this
> abandoned language flourish and why do the Brithini (of all people) use it?
In Brithos, throughout time, and because its Brithini, would be one possible answer.
> > >An alphabetic system must relate to the spoken system or it won't work.
> > And what makes you think that it _doesn't_ in the case of Western?
> The fact that if you use the Latin alphabet to write down French and Italian
> you don't get mutual comprehensibility.
Not if you write French or Italian down phonetically -- or worse, the way the French or Italians would write it! (*duck*) What we're proposing is essentially that you take an Italian word, write down the _Latin_ equivalent, who then gives it to a Frenchman, who then reads it aloud again -- in French. Now yes, there's a spoken form of Latin, and there may or may be of "common Western", but that's not necessary in the above case. ( But it's a cool extra touch, so I vote we add it anyway, rather than just to vex Mike. ;-) )
You might point out that that's treating each word ideogrammatically. And you'd be right. But it doesn't require an ideogrammatic language. Your arguments against an alphabetic script are really against an alphabetic script, _written phonetically_.
(Note the "fluent readers" of an alphabetic language have effectively "ideogrammatic" cognition of it anyway. When was the last time you had to "spell a word out in your head" to recognise what it was? If it was more than one word ago, then you're not reading purely "alphabetically".)
Having said all that... nothing I've said actually _requires_ an alphabetic script, it's just neutral on the issue. So why? I'm not sure, maybe the "European cum Middle Eastern" analogue _is_ too strong to shake off. Or maybe the rarity of ideograms in the RW makes it hard to accept them willy-nilly in Glorantha. (Though the other example I was thinking of, Pelandan, seems to be more of an "ideo-syllablary", as it were.)
So really, it's not an argument that can be settled by Logic, much as the Malkioni might wish it, but a Deutschmark might settle it at the next Con. (Which is a bargain rate, even via Thomas Cook.)
Slainte,
Alex.
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #135
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