I wouldn't assume Western is purely logographic, merely mostly. The God Learners may well have used a more sophisticated script than the original Western. Your objection is noted - but its not a killer argument against a basically logographic language.
And besides, we have the example of Japanese (Kanji plus other scripts) for one solution to this problem that occurs in the real world.
Alex replies to David Dunham
>> Someone ought to use Aztec-style rebus writing (which is probably
>> classified logosyllabic?), because it's weird and impractical -- I
>> propose Kralorela, just to make them less Chinese.
>
>That may or may not have merit as a suggestion, but as a line of
>reasoning, I find it truly awful. Let's remove thing [X] from
>culture [Y] because it's too much like its RW "analogue", and instead
>let's just turn [Y] into an ad hoc mish-mash of ideas equally borrowed
>from the RW, but without regard to any sort of thematic, mythic, or
>logical unity.
There is nothing wrong with the first part of the argument, only with the follow through. Its certainly a creative rule of thumb for Glorantha that no gloranthan culture should be based on only a single earth culture (though there is often a single most obvious model). David can hardly be expected to provide a convincing case for thematic, magical, or logical unity in a couple of lines - which doesn't make his initial reasoning any less valid. It does mean he has some more work to do if he wants us to accept his idea.
>If someone had a line of reasoning with the same conclusion, but
>which could honestly claim to be making it "more like Kralorela",
>and not simply "less like China", then more power to 'em, of course.
Except such claims are quite definately a matter of personal taste. I personally think that I am doing pretty much that as far as Western goes by rejecting a Latin model and suggesting a language model with more in common with the ideographic runes that seem to have originated in the West. And you don't like it. C'est la vie.
Cheers
David
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