In a message dated 2001-07-06 0:31:39 Pacific Daylight Time, 11@onna.com
writes:
> I wonder: why aren't languages with simple syllabic structures written in
> hiragana? It seems to be built for them.
Hiragana (and katakana) assume certain things about the syllabic structure,
specifically that syllables are of the form [C] V [C], where the trailing
consonant (if any) must be "n". Pairs of consonants like "st" and "tr"
within a single syllable aren't supported in kana. Neither are consonants
like "th" and vowels like "short a" as in "ash."
The kana are not built for "languages with simple syllabic structures" in
general, but for a specific language of that type: Japanese. It serves that
language very well, but would not work so well for, say, Spanish or Italian
(which could also be said to have relatively simple syllabic structures).
11 later wrote:
> Latin letters were not invented at any one time, they evolved, sort of.
> Same with our European digits.
That's an interesting point. As we have been saying, all scripts are created
by humans; none are "natural" in the sense that they sprout from the ground
or wash up on the shore. But is there a difference, in some people's minds
at least, between a script that is invented more or less intact versus one
that evolves over time? Does this kind of evolution somehow add credibility
to a script? What about Cyrillic; isn't it pretty much the same as when it
was introduced?
-Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Sat Jul 07 2001 - 02:51:58 EDT