> But, what makes people need to communicate in script?
>
> RELIGION
> One religion, one church, one language.
Indeed.
Although
> Outside of the church writing almost disapeared.
I doubt.
Rather, outside the church, no writing survived. The people who had the job of copying old text for future use were all clergy. Lack of scriptural evidence does not, in this case, constitute evidence that no writing occurred. Much valuable writing was actually *destroyed* by these same people.
> LAW, POLITICS, and TRADE
Yes.
> Writing came back to serve the powers of the time. This happened throughout
> Europe at the turn of the milenium.
No. I doubt that writing went away. However, there _was_ a period which had no centralized linguistic authority (despite the Church of Rome). Latin was, until this time, THE language of politics. When it became expedient (as Sergio suggests) to use the local language instead of the universal one, the written forms of local idioms became official languages.
This development has probably taken place in the Genertelan West, actually, because of the Syndics Ban, although perhaps not so efficiently, because the conservative elements of the culture (Sorcerous Rituals, Brithini, Religion based on objective Truth) are far stronger than in RW.
> CULTURE
Indeed!
But Sergio forgets two far more important reasons which motivate writing.
Artificial memory and the need to communicate with people who aren't physically present.
Artificial memory is the practice of writing to oneself. This sort of writing is usually done in dialect and, more likely, in idiolect. Accounts, notes, and such. Have a look at your own campaign notes, everyone. Are they written according to the rules of good grammar? I doubt it! Are these notes likely to survive for our grandchildren's use?
Does every Malkioni shopkeeper write his accounts in good Rhetorical Brithini?
Private correspondance is also usually written in dialect.
> So, my conclusion is that we should
> focus on what are westerners using Western Scripts to communicate:
>
> Is it for law, politics, trade, culture, or religion?
Rephrase:Is it for law, politics, trade, culture, religion, artificial memory, or private correspondance?
> It seems to me that the answer to the first question is simple: Western
> Scripts are used for religious, magical, cultural , political, and trading
> reasons, IN THAT ORDER OF IMPORTANCE.
I'd say that written Brithini probably breaks down more or less as Sergio suggests, but there must also be writing of local Western idioms which breaks down in a fairly opposite order:Artificial memory, private correspondance, low magic, trade, local politics, high magic, culture.
> The main reason to use scrips is to record and transmit religious scrits.
Not true. The main uses of script are quite private!
I generally disagree with Sergio's views of linguistic evolution in the West, though. Unlike RW, the West came into being through a process of DEvolution, not Evolution. The first Western script was instead likely to be perfectly sophisticated, and only partially comprehensible to anyone in 17th century Glorantha other than Zzabur and the wisest and most knowledgeable of the Brithini (wherever they may be).
Of course, the main argument against the Brithini resembles Latin proposal is that New Pelorian DOES resemble Latin. (But New Pelorian would be like Imperial Latin, unlike the Brithini parallel.)
IMO Brithini is more like Hebrew, and the other Western languages are a kind of Vulgate Hebrew, or Romance Hebrew as if Hebrew were Latin ... that is, similar evolution of both Latin and Malkioni, from radically different linguistic foundations.
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #136
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