Re: scripts

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 15:50:58 +0100 (BST)


Jeff Richard disclarifies the position on "Write Heortling":
> I don't think so. It would seem that modern Orlanthi scripts are based on
> the ancient Vingkotling scripts. They may have been heavily influenced, and
> in some places (Hendrikiland) even replaced, by Malkioni scripts, but I
> believe that the Orlanthi did not get their script from the West..

This appear to contradict your previous Unchecked Assertions, much less other data. Perhaps we're suffering from a lack of clarity about what sort of "script" we're speaking of; to wit, a writing system for the whole language, roughly as we understand it in the modern sense; or a restricted script used for sacred, decorative, and limited record-keeping purposes.

For the latter, an ideo/logographic system does indeed have some attractions. For the former, an alphabetic system (whether based on the Malkioni one or not) strikes me as bordering on being a "must". Needless to say, actually writing in such a manner will be far from common: it'd be rather a dangerously modern, citified, Foreign notion, which rural lawspeakers would be unlikely to use, much less anyone else.


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