Sampo Syreeni <decoy@iki.fi> wrote:
> I.e. an assumption is at work, here, telling us to disregard synthetic
> scripts as somehow inferior to "natural" ones. We might say, then,
that
> any script purposefully built (vs. decentrally evolved) is not
suitable
> for encoding. If I'm not mistaken, this would exclude quite a number
of
> writing systems.
Sampo has just articulated my favorite argument about so-called
"artificial" scripts. All writing systems are created by man; they do
not occur in nature, like mountains and trees and cats, even if some
symbols began as pictures of mountains and trees and cats. Trying to
isolate certain writing systems as "artificial" is a dead-end
proposition.
It is possible, of course, to isolate certain writing systems as having
been created in support of a work of literary fiction. However, if I
may quote from Unicode 3.1 (UAX #27):
"The Gothic script was devised in the fourth century by the Gothic
bishop, Wulfila (311-383 CE), to provide his people with a written
language and a means of reading his translation of the Bible. Written
Gothic materials are largely restricted to fragments of Wulfila's
translation of the Bible; these fragments are of considerable importance
in New Testament textual studies. The chief manuscript, kept at Uppsala,
is the Codex Argenteus or 'the Silver Book,' which is partly written in
gold on purple parchment."
Without stepping on anyone's faith, it seems that the line isn't too
clear here, either.
-Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Thu Mar 14 2002 - 22:56:55 EST