> From: Michael (michka) Kaplan [mailto:michka@trigeminal.com]
> > From: "11 digit boy" <11@onna.com>
> > You ever notice how characters in different writing systems
> seem to be
> > made out of only a small number of parts? Like if you write
> an N backwards,
> > you get a Russian vowel, or if you write a five with the top
> stroke shorter
> > and tilted a little bit, with the tilt just right, you get a
> hiragana ra?
>
> I suppose. Generally speaking, people do not think of it that
> way. This is a
> (IMHO) dangerous practice of trying to explain one
> language/script in terms
> of another.
I've long thought about this, actually. However, when the thinking
is done, it's quite simple and is no more a coincidence than the fact that
the designers and perpetuators of all these scripts shared essentially the
same hand and eyes. Scripts tend to reflect the medium used to write them
(note the dramatic changes between the inscribed early form of the Chinese
characters and the brush stroked later forms), but were all written by hands
to be read by eyes. As such, it is not so surprising that the same distinct
shapes and relative groupings were employed in similar fashions in different
alphabets.
/|/|ike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Jul 06 2001 - 00:18:17 EDT