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Internet Message Format  |  1993-01-08  |  1.3 KB
  1. Path: sparky!uunet!pipex!demon!cix.compulink.co.uk!petex
  2. Newsgroups: sci.lang
  3. From: petex@cix.compulink.co.uk (Peter Christian)
  4. Subject: Re: ..... On bhaashaa, lipi | language, scripts ...
  5. Reply-To: petex@cix.compulink.co.uk
  6. Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 20:19:00 +0000
  7. Message-ID: <memo.851487@cix.compulink.co.uk>
  8. Sender: usenet@demon.co.uk
  9. Lines: 22
  10.  
  11. In-Reply-To: <1993Jan8.163818.13749@cs.wayne.edu> seeta@eng.wayne.edu (Seetamraju UdayaBhaskar Sarma)
  12.  
  13. There's one big problem with logographic scripts (which I realized
  14. the hard way - by starting to learn Chinese). If you don't already
  15. recognize a sign you have no way of (a) guessing what it means or (b)
  16. guessing how to pronounce it so you can ask someone!
  17.  
  18. Geoffrey Sampson in his book on Writing Systems argues that the
  19. English sytem is the about best because it works both phonetically (very
  20. roughly) and logographically. However, as an native speaker of
  21. English, he could be accused of chauvinism. (Though he claims that
  22. Korean is actually the best system ever invented.)
  23.  
  24. Peter
  25.  
  26.  
  27. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  28. Peter Christian                         
  29.   Dept of European Languages              peter@gold.ac.uk
  30.   Goldsmiths' College, London.            petex@cix.compulink.co.uk
  31. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  32.  
  33.