Lars Marius Garshol asked:
> * Kenneth Whistler
> |
> | It's up in the air.
>
> I can understand why that would be so, but shouldn't the roadmap say
> so? I would think it would be useful for it to do so.
Yes, I think it would be.
>
> | From what I have seen, there is some question whether Nushu should
> | just be treated as a cipher of the existing Han characters.
>
> The information on this page:
> <URL: http://www2.ttcn.ne.jp/~orie/ >
Ah, I missed that. I had found Orie Endo's list of references, but
not made it back to this fine analysis.
>
> would indicate that this is not the case. Apparently some characters
> are derived from Hanzi, but others seem not to be. Also, Nushu does
> not seem to be logographic.
Since it does, according to Orie Endo, seem to be a phonetic writing
for the local dialect (Chengguan Tuhua), it would be operating on
very different principles than the Han script, I agree. That, plus
the apparent source of many forms from embroidery stitches, would
seem to qualify it as a genuinely distinct script.
>
> | "When research began again 30 years later, scholars had difficulty finding
> | anyone still proficient in the language. A dozen or so women in their
> | 70s and 80s were found who could read nushu, and only three could
> | write it. Two of those three have since died, leaving Yang Huanyi,
> | 83, the only person in Hunan's Jiangyong county who can still communicate
> | using the script." -- Tracy Sorenson
>
> What Orie Endo writes seems to indicate that things are not quite as
> hopeless as Sorenson may make them seem. So while it does not appear
> to be fully researched yet it does seem that it will be at some
> point.
Thanks for the pointer. Michael Everson ought now to have enough information
to put a reasonable entry in the Roadmap. It is not yet ready for
encoding yet, clearly, and sounds like it could have a numerosity
from something like 600 characters at the low estimate to 1500 characters
at the high end estimate.
--Ken
>
> --Lars M.
>
>
>
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