Re: Writing

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 16:23:37 +0100 (BST)

Nils Weinander:
> The oldest Vithelan script is used in the Yederjalif, an
> ancient holy book, describing the rites of the High Gods,
> the vedas of Vithela to make a RW comparison. It is extremely
> difficult to learn, because reading it (must be read aloud
> I think) means direct communion with the High Gods. That in
> turn means that the reader experiences a state of Liberation
> while reading. I think the script is a huge set of complex
> runes. I don't know if they are syllabic or logographic,
> but the main point is that they are mystical/magical
> (divine mysticism).

Probably logographic (or even ideographic, in the more precise sense). Here, difficulty to learn is a virtue of the choice, rather than a vice...

> The fourth script (also my idea) was invented on Mokato in
> its imperial days. After a rather embarassing incident, the
> chamberlain of the Grand Steward received the script as a
> gift from Hobimarong. The characters represent a consonant/
> vowel combination, (with single letters added later). The
> inspiration is the indian devanagari script.

Also rather like Japanese kana (in which caes "-n" is the only such single letter). A lot of EI words seem to consist of (C)V(C) type syllables, though there are inconvenient exceptions to this. So a "syllabary+" type system would maybe be handy. (Perhaps this originates from some language where the syllables were a more consistently good fit (to (C)V(C), or to (C)V), and the affixes were added later as a "hack" to deal with loan-words that broke the rules.

Cheers,
Alex.

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