Trotsky :
> No, Golden Age Brithini would be what the Blue Book of Zzabur was
> originally written in.
Right.
> What they write in now is Ice Age Brithini.
I doubt it.
> According
> to Greg, modern Brithini has diverged from this more than you'd think -
Probably just about as much as I would personally assume.
> He was also fairly specific about the Abiding Script being
> alphabetic.
That's what I heard too, although he was a bit wishy-washy when I heard it.
> Personally, I believe modern Western is a cursive alphabetic script.
Basically, yes. But there may be some cool Gloranthan details ...
> Past evidence suggests that new footballs will not be long in arriving
> ;-)
Boot !!
Peter Metcalfe :
> Strictly speaking, there's no such thing as a Golden Age
> Brithini.
True, true, true :-)
> Afterwards, Real Script was the written form for all
> documents and books of Danmalastan, and descendant forms of
> it are still used today.
>
> Hence I'd say that the evolution of writing scripts in the west
> happened in the Golden Age and after that, it's just modifications
> of the Real Script.
Cool : I was going to look this up myself but you beat me to it !
> >Remember that we're speaking of a writing system that's
> >*at least* 2.500 - 3.000 years old (or 3.500 - 4.000 years
> >older than comparable RW C20/21 writing systems ; if the
> >'Brithini Latin' camp is in the right).
>
> Over 15 000 years in fact (since the first disappearance
> of the Sun).
I was being deliberately conservative. 15.000 fine by me.
> For this reason alone, the issue of whether logograms still
> exist in written western becomes trivial.
It's certainly a detail rather than a core feature ; not *necessarily* a trivial detail though : this is the structure of modern script we're discussing, and if there's any wide use of the Runes in writing (ie not restricted to a few academics, alchemists, & magicians and such) then it's an important difference with Latin.
If it's a restricted use though, then the analogy is perfect, including an Ice Age 'classical' form a 'church' form and several 'vulgar' forms of the same language (Seshnegi, Loskalmi, modern Brithini, etc..), some more conservative (or even archaic) than others.
> As for the
> abbreviations used in Latin manuscripts, yes,
yes
Alex Ferguson :
> > BUT I am not so convinced that Ice Age Brithini (actually,
> > pre-Ice Age : this is Golden Age Brithini, isn't it?) used an
> > alphabetic script.
>
> I dunno, which do you mean? The Ice Age is the Lesser Darkness/
> Storm Age in "comparative Ages" terms, yes.
Real Script vs. the Ice Age variety. See elsewhere.
> Such a contention
> is getting into the realm of the imponderable, however.
No it isn't : the center of this whole argument, right from the beginning (all those years ago) is the Rune system : what do the Runes represent (as graphemes) in Western writing, if anything ? How did they get there ? What is their function in an alphabetic sript (are they letters, or idiograms, or both, or something else entirely, or unrelated to that writing system ?
> I disagree. While I concur that "runes" (core or otherwise) are used
> in modern grimoires, that hardly means that the modern script has
> "devolved" from a ideographic one, at least by any manifest route.
Evolution not devolution.
Writing systems tend to become more refined and precise as time goes on, not the reverse ; if the Real Script *were* idiographic it would be because the people of Danmalastan simply had fewer ideas than their descendants, and were able to include all of them in a "perfect" writing system.
> More likely they _are_ used as abbreviations, or more to the point
> for added precision of reference, in the manner that mathematicians
> like to cannibalise other alphabets for symbols that they can them
> give precisely nailed down meanings to.
Quite possibly. I'm just asking the question ... ;-)
> > If this is wrong, then another interesting question arises : the Core
> > Runes *are* idiograms. Where then would they come from ?
>
> Well, they're "ideo-"s, but clearly they're not "-grams" in any
> strong sense; they're not a writing system, and seem to me to be
> unlikely to be derived from one.
Erm : they're certainly "-grams" because they're written linguistic signs, which is what "-gram" means.
They're not necessarily "ideos" though. (But I believe that they are)
Julian Lord
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