> From: simon_hibbs_at_lycosmail.com
> Sorry, I'm with Alex on this. Nobody is saying Glorantha can't be unique, or
> that Westerners are Medieval Europeans. Then again, arbitrarily mucking
> things around for the sole reason of being different desn't make any sense
> either.
Oh, I certainly did not mean that we should arbitrarily "muck things around", just to avoid being predictable. I think that basing a Gloranthan culture on an arbitrary mix of several Earth cultures is as bad as thinking it to be just the Gloranthan counterpart of one.
What I am trying to get across is that we can not in any way justify how Gloranthan Westerners are from how Medieval Europeans were.
The Westerners are Westerners.
(By God, I am starting to sound like Ayn Rand 8-{
If we want to describe their culture we should argue from Gloranthan reality.
Just like Greg does with mythology.
(It is fine to describe Westerners to new players as sort of like Medieval Europeans, _but_ we should not let us be limited by that.)
> If anyone's got good reasons why they think western scripts are
> ideographic or whatever then that's fine.
It is, after all, the oldest written language in Glorantha, is it not? It makes sense to me that older written languages are more logographic than yonger. It has also been unchanged for millenia, a fate few alphabetical scripts survive, as people tend to spell as they speak.
I think one of the oppositions to Western script to be ideographic is that people think in terms of Chinese. I think of it in terms of ancient middle east languages, precursors to our alphabetical scripts (including Hebrew).
We do know that the written form of Western language is the same, but that the spoken differs. Now, this difference can arise with alphabetical scripts, but it is easier to think of in cultures using ideographs. The differences can be greater, as well, as it is easier to pronounce an ideograph in wildly differing ways.
There is that interesting connection to the Runes.
And, last, and most personal, it messes with our heads and forces us to think in different ways. It also gives the Westerners yet another point to argue about, i.e how to pronounce, and in some cases, interprete, an ideograph.
I would think that the only alphabetical script in Glorantha is the youngest written language, New Pelorian.
But I also agree with Simon Hibbs on that Judaism is, on the whole, a very interesting source of inspiration for the Westerners religion and relation to the written word.
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