> >No, they didn't. After Sumerian (which had phonetic complements,
> >determinatives and grammatical particles), most of the Mesopotamian
> >scripts are logosyllabic, simply because they were Semitic languages
> >rather than the monosyllabic, agglutinative Sumerian language.
>My understanding of cuneiform (which is sketchy and a while ago with
>a recent brush-up with the Britannica) is that it began as picture
>writing and quickly gained a sound component.
I'm continually resisting the temptation to give an full-length lecture on the topic but you really need to know slightly more about the topic. Cuneiform is by definition not picture writing.
Cuneiform is the script the Sumerians developed from their original pictographs that was suitable for incising on clay and wax tablets. The fact that it was a quick process historically means that it is rather pointless trying to scribe a logographic script to Dara Happa (which has had writing for nigh on six millennia).
>The other nations that adopted them assigned their languages
>sounds to the pictures still inherent in the symbols.
Looking at the examples of cuneiform, I am hard-pressed to find any picture inherent in the signs. They did ascribe word values to equivalent Sumerian logograms but that's only _part_ of what they did as hairy issues such as homophones and allograms complicate it immensely. As a result, most Mesopotamian languages found it much useful to use the signs syllabically rather than logographically. Some languages, such as Old Persian or Ugaritic, even converted the cuneiform writing into a fully lettered script.
>So they were phonetic, but still contained a pictoral quality, at
>least in theory.
But pictoral qualities does not make a logographic script. You only have to look at Egyptian hieroglyphs as an example of a picture-rich lettered script.
> >Because it's already been decided that Dara Happan is a lettered
> >alphabet, simplified from the older Buserian runes.
>Sadly, that seems to be the case, but "Because I'm the daddy and I
>say so" does not go very far in explaining why it happened that way
>in Glorantha.
I fail to see why we should have to explain in detail exactly why an alphabetic script was developed in Dara Happa given that nobody particularly cares about how the roman alphabet was so developed in using it.
> >That is as it should be for there's only very limited ways one
> >can represent the sun as a picture (and there are similarities
> >between archaic Sumerian and Shang dynasty tablets).
>By this reasoning, all RW writing systems should look pretty
>similar.
Well, yes. Have a look at the symbol for cows or suns...
>In Dara Happa, the symbol for sun is going to have all sorts of
>implications that it will not for the Orlanthi.
But such meanings are determined by the culture and not inherent in the picture/word itself. Even if they had exactly the same sign, the Orlanthi and the Dara Happan would still draw different meanings about the value of 'Sun' in pretty much the same way as Americans and Europeans would for 'Socialism'.
> >The hieroglyphs remain as complicated as ever (and FWIW it's
> >a consonantal script that uses determinatives instead of vowels).
> >The only simplification that occurs is the reduction of formal
> >pictures to squiggles for ease of handwriting.
>There is also a formalization of spelling because the hiratic and
>demotic (these aren't spelled right, but I'm in a hurry) are much
>more abstract, and you can't figure out the meaning by looking at
>the pictures.
But you can't figure out the meaning by looking at the pictures in Egyptian hieroglyphs either! The pictures there have specific consonantal meanings that are not normally apparent. For example, crocodile is msh in Egyptian and spelt with an Owl (for M), a bolt (for S) and twisted flax (for H). Relying on the pictures to tell you what the word means will lead to possibly fatal conclusions if you are trying to decipher a sign cautioning you against crocodiles in the area.
>There is no reason to anathematize letters in west-central
>Genertela, but there's no really strong reason to accept letters
>without question either.
I really can't see anything that unlettered scripts would give us for west-central Genertelan cultures. Merely being different is not sufficient in and of itself to saddling cultures with unintuitive components.
> >[West-central Genertelan cultrues have lettered scripts] makes
> > excellent sense to me given their respective analogies
> >(largely within the Middle East, the Mediterranean and Europe).
>This argument suggest that the Western alphabet should arise from
>Dara Happan, because the letters of the RW culture the West is based
>on arose from the writing system of the RW analog for Dara Happa.
No it doesn't. All it does suggest is that the Westerners as being the equivalent analogy of a medieval culture should have a lettered script.
> >>>FWIW given the transcription of foreign names (Oralanatus,
> >>>Umatum etc.), Dara Happan might not be an true alphabet but a
> >>>partial-syllabary.
>If this is the case, I'd be quite satisfied. Hopefully, it is not
>true or unchangeble that "it's already been decided that Dara
>Happan is a lettered alphabet."
FYI one can have a partial syllabary with a lettered script. The trick is that some signs cannot follow certain other signs and that some signs must follow (or be followed by) certain other signs.
>The Entekosiad says (or strongly suggests) that Pelandan is syllabic.
It doesn't as numerous glyphs that are used to represent polysyllabic words (Addi, Aro etc).
>The Fortunate Succession gives us a mostly lettered script for Dara
>Happa. Now, either I'm falsely conflaiting Wendarian and Pelandan, or
>this can't be true.
Why not? Dara Happa and Pelanda are as different as Greece or Persia.
>Can it? Those Plentonian letters look like they function just like
>english letters (maybe better, they are more firmly fixed to sounds).
I fail to see what the problem is with them functioning "just like english letters". Arabic and Hebrew scripts have letters that function similarly.
>This makes perfect sense to me except (as above) I'm confused about
>the relationship between Old Pelorian, Wendarian, Pelandan, and Dara
>Happan (which I'm assuming is seperate from the first three). Can
>you explain this or give me a source?
Old Pelorian is the primeval language that all Pelorians spoke in the Green Age. At the end of the Green Age, people became aware of their differences and so split up into many peoples. In this way, the Pelorians became the Dara Happans, the Pelandans, the Darjiinians etc. Wendaria is the oldest name for the NW Pelorian region referring to the period between the Green Age and the Pelandan period, the Good Old Days before the Gods War. The Pelandans latter became conquered by the Carmanians and sometimes their land is known as Old Carmania.
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