>However since the new material that's been released since
>the above was written (the monicker of Pelorian Farmer
>Languages is inaccurate for a start), I suspect the numbers
>are out-of-date.
Alex Ferguson says:
>Sorry. I must contain myself better. ;-)
Please don't.
>If it [Western] were
>a genuinely consistently phonetic alphabet, that's about the best
>starting point. Then you only have to worry about sounds you don't
>have letters for, phonic distinctions different languages do or do
>not make, stress, tone, and all that stuff. (Western as IPA?)
I was asssuming Western was lettered. I keep reading that last staement as "Western as India Pale Ale." Do they make Pale Ale in the West? Are they famous for it?
>> But Japanese writing is very conciously derived from Chinese. And
>> heavily modified to meet the needs of the language.
>
>Heavily unmodified. Kanji makes brutally few concessions to the
>realities of Japanese as a language, for which it's much less well
>suited than Chinese, in many respects. You may counter that this
>means that there _are_ instances where a logographic script is used
>where logic indicates that it ought not to be, but "borrowing" a
>full-fledged script from a neighbour is a very different case than
>actually _developing_ such a script, where local conditions don't
>suit.
I was thinking of the whole system, Kanji and kana, which developed, as I recall, due to that "lack of fit.". I agree with the rest of this.
David Dunham reminds:
>The computer game King of Dragon Pass is one of the most extensive
>sources for early Third Age Orlanthi.
Everyone tells me it's good. Perhaps I'll get it for Xmas, when I can take the time to play it. (Since my brother Andrew is on this list, maybe it'll happen, too.)
Alex Ferguson says more:
OK, that sounds pretty logical. I'd only add the further quibble that
>the first "script" doesn't sound to me like a script in the sense we'd
>understand it today. You couldn't write down a myth (in verbatim
>form), or the text of a saga, or the details of a recipe for blutfisk
>in it, not just because you'd be stoned for sacrilege, but because
>the native script just don't have the generality of expression in it.
>i.e., stress on the "restricted". (Hence the existence of the "borrowed"
>script, for such (wicked and immoral) purposes.)
My thoughts exactly, although I'm not sure most Orlanthi would find it wicked, just pointless. "Why do you bother with that scratchin' boy? Cows, cows are what's important in a man's life...."
Peter Larsen
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