From: Michael Everson (everson@evertype.com)
Date: Fri Nov 07 2008 - 05:39:16 CST
On 7 Nov 2008, at 10:25, Andreas Stötzner wrote:
> I think, Michael Everson has a point here. Though we have the runic
> range named âRunicâ and not âOld Germanicâ we have the old
> turkish âRunesâ named âOld Turkicâ because *run-* is a
> germanic root and as such inappropriate to the turkish script. In
> the same sense I would refuse the notion âAlphabetâ for anything
> that is not descendant from Old Semitic/Hebrew or Greek.
Quite sensible. I believe everyone agrees that Old Turkic and Old
Hungarian are "runiform" rather than "runes". It would not have been
the worst thing in the world to have "Turkic Runes" and "Hungarian
Runes" as script names in the standard, but as Old Turkic is not named
the former now it would be best to be consistent. Thus "Old Hungarian"
is the best name for the script, in keeping with long-standing practice.
> If âszĂ©kely-magyar rovĂĄsâ makes sense in Hungarian this is by
> no means a reason for claiming âSzekler-Hungarian Rovas Writingâ
> makes equally sense in English.
Indeed.
> In German, âSzekler-Schriftâ or âAltungarischâ would be
> decent, but not âSzekler-Ungarische Rovas-Schriftâ â this is
> just a mess.
In German, "Altungarisch" is the established term.
> To conclude, naming it just âRovĂĄsâ might eventually be
> acceptable, such [treating] it as âBopomofoâ or âThai Lueâ.
Except of course that the diacritic would not be permitted. And it
begs the question because there is an established name for the script
in English.
> Yet it would be as intelligent as naming Greek âGlyphsâ just
> because this is the prorietary name for âengraved charactersâ in
> that language.
> â Since âOld Hungarianâ is the appropriate, unambiguous and
> established (!) term in English, it should be that.
I'd like to share some sources now. Note, please, that these are all
books about the history and study of writing systems, two of which
indeed are foundational texts for the scientific study of writing
(Gelb and Jensen):
Coulmas, Florian. 1996. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems.
ISBN 0-631-19446-0. Pp. 366-368.
"Old Hungarian"
Diringer, David. 1947. The Alphabet. A Key to the History of Mankind.
London: Hutchinson's Scientific and technical Publications. Pp. 314-315.
"Early Hungarian Script"
Gaur, Albertine. 1992. A History of Writing. London: British Library.
ISBN 0-7123-0270-0. P. 143.
"Old Hungarian"
Gelb, I. J. 1952. A study of writing: The foundations of grammatology.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pp. 142, 144.
"Old Hungarian"
Haarmann, Harald. 1990. Universalgeschichte der Schrift. ISBN
3-593-34346-0. P. 519-520.
"Die altungarische Schrift"
Jensen, Hans. 1969. Die Schrift in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart.
Berlin: VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften. Pp. 416-420.
"Die altungarische Schrift"
Nakanishi, Akira. 1994. Writing Systems of the World. Rutland & Tokyo:
Charles E. Tuttle. ISBN 0-8048-1654-9. P. 28.
"Old Hungarian script"
Senseido Encycolopaedia.ă2001. èšèȘćŠć€§èŸć
ž. äžçć . ISBN
4-385-15177-6. Pp. 1150-1151.
ăăŽăĄăŒă·ă„æćă<rovÄshu moji>ă"Ancient Hungarian Runic
characters" (Note here that while Japanese borrows the Hungarian term,
they give a standard English term which does not. Note too that
Japanese author Nakanishi uses the term "Old Hungarian".
I can find no authoritative linguistic material in English which calls
this script "RovĂĄs".
I do not, as GĂĄbor HosszĂș has suggested, try to "degrade" him here by
disagreeing. I am doing my job, which is to ensure that the correct
terminology is used in the Universal Character Set. We have always
followed the standard linguistic terminology, and we should do so here.
(I don't "win" these arguments all the time either; I preferred Fraser
and Pollard but accepted Lisu and Miao which also have currency
amongst linguists. But "rovĂĄs" doesn't have currency in English, and
can't be written correctly since character names can't have the
accent, and can't be reliably pronounced by English-speaking users of
the standard anyway.)
With regards,
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com
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