From: Andrew C. West (andrewcwest@alumni.princeton.edu)
Date: Mon Dec 08 2003 - 04:46:28 EST
On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 17:40:25 -0800, "Doug Ewell" wrote:
> There are plenty of things one can do with writing that aren't supported
> by computer encodings, and aren't really expected to be. The idea of a
> black "i" with a red dot was mentioned. Here's another: the
> piece-by-piece "exploded diagrams" used to teach young children how to
> write the letters of the alphabet. For "a" you first draw a "c", then a
> half-height vertical stroke to the right of (and connected with) the
> "c". Two diagrams. For "b" you draw a full-height stroke, then a
> backwards "c" to its right. Another two diagrams. And so on.
>
> For each letter, each diagram except the last shows an incomplete
> letter, which might or might not accidentally correspond to the glyph
> for a real letter. Also, each diagram except the first might show the
> "new" stroke to be drawn in a different color from the strokes already
> drawn, to clarify the step-by-step process. There might also be little
> arrows with dashed lines alongside each stroke, to show the direction in
> which to draw it.
>
... and similar stroke-by-stroke incremental diagrams showing how to write CJK
ideographs are even more common in (Chinese, Japanese, etc.) pedagogical texts
intended for both native children and for foreigners. I've also seen such
diagrams in Tibetan pedagogical texts, and imagine you could find them for
almost any modern script, so I hope no-one's thinking of proposing a set of
semi-composed Latin letters (with combining directional arrows), or we'll be
sliding down a long, slippery slope.
Andrew
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