>Despite popular demand, I have another Thought to throw into the
>discussion about the written form of Western. One advantage to an
>alphabetic script is that it's better at "spelling out" foreign words
>and names than an ideographic script would be. (Naturally this requires
>that a "phonetic" reading of such be possible, whether or not the script
>is normally read strictly phoneticly.)
Hmm.. I feel I have to stick my oar in here.. Hebrew is an alphabetical and very phonetic language (when it is written with vowels). As has been noted, it has not changed, even when Jews were speaking Arumaic instead of pure Hebrew. Problems come when you have sounds in the language you are trying to write that do not appear in the alpabet you are using. e.g. In Hebrew there is no "w" and no "i" (pronounced "eye") sound, so you could not write the word "why".
> Not very much use to the "unchanging" Brithini of course, but damn handy if
> you're (say) a God Learner, and you have to write down the name of Thunder
> Brother #1 in your paper to appear in that upcoming conference in sunny
> Umathela on Minor Storm Deities.
Unless the name is written deliberately wrong. ie the name of G-d in Hebrew has never been written with vowels, and is only represented with the letters YW and H. The god learners that translated the bible from Hebrew decided to take the vowels from the word "Adonai" (the title of god, used in Hebrew prayers instead of a name) and stuck them together with G-d's name to create the word "Jehovah". Of course, this is not a problem if everyone agrees that's how the name is pronounced.
It may become a problem if you try to summon or visit the Thunder Brother, and discover to your surprise that there's a major demon with a very similar name, though. ;-)
Jonathan Coxhead:
>The question: What lives in Stinking Forest? Elves? Trolls? Computer
>programmers with poor personal hygiene?
Tusk Riders. The stink (IIRC) comes from all the blood that has been shed in their rituals. The falls above Snakepipe Hollow is also noted as a place for Elves and Trolls to hit each other.
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