Re: Fwd: Endangered Alphabets

From: Mark Davis ☕ <mark_at_macchiato.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 09:43:23 -0700

+1

Mark
*— Il meglio è l’inimico del bene —*

On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 08:41, John Cowan <cowan_at_mercury.ccil.org> wrote:

> Michael Everson scripsit:
>
> > I'd like to invite everyone to support this worthwhile project:
>
> Worthwhile it may be, but surely misinformed as well. Does Mr. Brooks
> actually suppose that fifteen to twenty million Khmers are going to
> abandon their native language, or cease to write it, or switch en masse
> to Latin script? Yet he lists it as one of the "Endangered Alphabets"
> at http://www.endangeredalphabets.com .
>
> # Writing has become so dominated by a small number of global cultures
> # that those 6,000-7,000 languages are written in fewer than 100
> # alphabets.
>
> Most of them aren't written at all. Indeed, I'd guess that the number
> of written languages is higher today than it's ever been.
>
> # Moreover, at least a third of the world's remaining alphabets are
> # endangered -- no longer taught in schools, no longer used for commerce
> # or government, understood only by a few elders, restricted to a few
> # monasteries or used only in ceremonial documents, magic spells, or
> # secret love letters.
>
> This is very misleading. Most of the restricted-use scripts have never
> been general-purpose scripts.
>
> --
> A witness cannot give evidence of his John Cowan
> age unless he can remember being born. cowan_at_ccil.org
> --Judge Blagden http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
>
>
Received on Fri Aug 19 2011 - 11:44:18 CDT

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