Dave Cake:
> Which means that Italian, French, etc did not have a written
> form. Fair enough, many languages didn't. Their Gloranthan analogues,
> however, do, and its shared.
No, it doesn't mean that at all, by any reasonable definition. If I can pronouce something in one vernacular language, have it written down in Latin, and have it read elsewhere in a different one, then that's a common written form by any reasonable duck test.
> the West should more than just a transplanted medieval Europe.
And there's some danger if we don't crowbar ideographs in there on no evidence, it will be? Odd, since you employ rhetoric to exactly opposite effect later.
> it makes the Rune obsession (and, for that matter, the sheer obsession
> with the written word of HW sorcery) more understandable.
I don't think it does. I can think of several RW cultures more 'obsessed with' symbology and the written word than the Chinese... For my money, using a 'ideorunic' script for purely quotidian purposes, and constructing elaborate cosmological theories on The Runes hardly go hand in hand.
> >Similarly, let's make lots of other jarringly
> >inappropriate inclusions into other cultures. Doraddi saunas and
> >Kralori jousting, anyone?
> Ooh, like a medieval society based on social mobility, or a
> rigid immortal society of atheists with a caste system including a
> noncombatant ruling class? You are right, wouldn't want to pollute
> the West with anything culturally inappropriate for medieval Europe.
No, I just don't accept 'let's include it for the sheer heck of it' to be a good argument. If there some compelling, actual reason to do so, then that would be different. There ain't. I'm not espousing some 'strong analogue' viewpoint, I'm merely disputing the wisdom of an 'anti-analogue' one.
The last time this popped up, I went into some detail about the practical difficulties of logographic languages, and why they were inappropriate for what we know about the Malkioni. I hestitate to re-hash that in too much detail, but briefly... Consider why such langauges are rare in the RW. (I know a billion plus Chinese can't be wrong, but...) Consider the syllabic structure of Western, based on what Western words and names we know. Consider the lack of any evidence whatsoever for Western being a monosyllabic language, in the linguistic sense. Consider the total nightmare of foreign loan-words if one has such a language (something of a occupational hazard if one is a lozenge-conquering, cross-cultural religious-theorising God Learner).
simon_hibbs:
> My personal preference would be for the ancient Malkioni script to be similar
to
> be Hebrew. Why? Because much of Malkionism and western metaphysics reminds me
> of Judaism. After all, European monotheism isn't a native phenomenon but an
> import. Why base Malkioni culture on a second hand copy, when you can use the
> real thing?
I agree, though on the narrow point of whether they have a logographic or alphabetic (or whatever else) sort of script that's being overparticularised, one might say. Hebrew is alphabetic, though the practice of omitting vowel notations could certainly be nicked, as part explanation why 'different languages' (a bag of worms as a concept in itself) have a common script. ("We pronounce that Zubaar in these parts, stranger. Die, heretic.")
Slàn libh,
Alex.
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