Yes, many "logographic" scripts give syllabic contents to their pictograms, but, as in cunieform script (sumerian, babylonian and assyric) , the syllabic content, i.e. how you pronounce them differs with the language spoken. Thus, the sign for "mountain" means mountain in all the spoken languages, but is pronounced differentely and so given different syllabic content (generally the first part of the word).
Whether this is unlogographic or not I leave hence. Most pictograms have a logographic _and_ a syllabic content, and could be used as either. (This is, as I understand it, true even for modern Chinese Languages.)
Anyway, I am basing this on the assumption that the West has age old texts in common that have not been changed, only interpreted in varying ways. Texts still read in their original form, like, say, the Koran. That these texts have been kept in their original script. And that this written language is (one of) the oldest on Glorantha. Perhaps I am wrong.
I am also basing my ideas on that there is some (technological and) cultural
development on Glorantha. Not, granted, as on Earth, but in the general sense
that ideas grow from simpler to more complex. That better ideas are more
lasting than lesser ones.
The development of written languages would, in essence, follow these lines:
Logographic - Syllabic/phonematical - Alphabetical
This gives a consecutively diminishing amount of pictograms/characters. (With
many written languages falling between these categories.)
The God Learners probably rejoiced in this sort of breaking things down into
smaller parts, even in breaking down phonemes from differing languages to
common denominators. But other cultures? The Brithini?
> The Roman alphabet is older than the standardized Chinese
> script of Shih Huang-Ti. And even the People's Republic
> have seen fit to introduced minor spelling reforms. Hence
> Western Script is Ideogrammic because it was unchanging
> doesn't work for me.
Well, there have been many changes in the Latin alphabet too, since classical
times we have several new letters (g, j, k, u, to name some), as well as
other characters (like . , : ; " ! ? etc ;-) and new ways to write (punctuation,
spaces between words...).
But I was thinking (and not very coherently) more in lines of spelling, the
whole written language, where Latin/Italian/French/Spanish/Roumainian have
diverged quite considerably, while many logograms seem to keep their meaning
for a long time. I think there is a point where it is easier to keep a written
language in common in its logographic sense. Spoken languages seem to diverge
more than written.
We know that spoken Western Languages differ, but that the written form is the same (Glorantha:Genertela box). If it then is an alphabetical script, then they all have to write in a common language, like Latin, rather than in their own form of Western. Why does there not, in that case, exist written forms of the separete Western dialects? Or does it?
Is written Western then always written Brithini/Tadeniti? Does, in essence, a Loskalmi have to learn Brithini to learn how to read. (This is different from how I understood it from the Glorantha Box.)
> Like A is an ox? You also get this connection in alphabets.
> Hence I think the thirty standard runes is the God Learner
> alphabet.
Yes, that seems plausible. The God Learners having distilled the core runes from older sources, not only perhaps in magical content.
But is all (modern) Western script God Learner script? No. The Brithini share the common Western script and would hardly go for such newfangled inventions.
> Dara Happa has had a standardized alphabet since the Plentonic
> reforms of 221 ST.
OK, I did not know that. Glorious ReAscent, I suppose? I think I interpreted that as to be syllabic script rather than true alphabetical.
>KoS, when speaking of the EWF, implies that
> the Orlanthi have been so since the Imperial Age (and possibly
> before): "One popular theorist, Banadal of Ger, believes that
> these are in fact ancient letters similar to our own, and that
> they spell out the name by which these folks call themselves."
> KoS p181.
Perhaps "our own letters" are a God Learner derivate? (I wonder what language this Banadel of Ger (!?) is supposed to have meant as his own?)
You are not implying, I hope, that Auld Wyrmish is alphabetic, or even syllabic. That seems very odd for a language that is largely unpronounceable by humans ;-)
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