From: Mark E. Shoulson (mark@kli.org)
Date: Thu May 13 2004 - 21:10:52 CDT
Peter Constable wrote:
>>Peter Constable wrote:
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>>I was already after the first paragraph going to mention another
>>>
>>>
>writing
>
>
>>>system, and I'm even more strongly reminded of it by this second
>>>paragraph: Sign Writing...
>>>
>>>
>
>
>
>>And there's also Visible Speech, by Alexander Melville Bell (and
>>improved by Henry Sweet), which is definitely an alphabet (a phonetic
>>one), but also very decidedly featural: different shapes represent
>>different articulators or features.
>>
>>And tengwar is featural
>>
>>
>
>Back up the truck a moment. I was not saying because Sign Writing is
>like Hangul that we should therefore categorize it as featural. In case
>I wasn't clear, I don't mind featural as an adjunct characteristic, but
>I do not think that belongs in our basic taxonomy of scripts, which is
>structurally based. Not unless there's a writing system in which the
>units of written representation correspond to phonological features. And
>neither Sign Writing nor Hangul is like that.
>
I fully agree. "Featural" is a description orthogonal to considerations
like "alphabet" or "syllabary" or "printed in green ink" for that
matter. I was just running off with talking about other orthographies
which could be described as featural, whatever else the are (note that
VS and Lhoerr are alphabets, and tengwar is probably closest to an
abjad, in most modes)
~mark
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