From: Alex Ferguson (abf@cs.ucc.ie)
Date: Tue 24 Oct 2000 - 22:54:49 EEST
Topi Pitkanen:
> I'm a bit puzzled about written Western. Isn't that a writing system that all
> the people of the West could read and understand even if they didn't speak the
> same language. I've assumed that Western is a chinese-like logonographic
> writing. Or is Western an set of alphabet that can be used to write "any"
> language like our roman alphabet?
Much debated. Last time this came up (fairly recently), I "got in the
last word" with Malkioni acronyms. ("Tamp.") Maybe the logographophiles
have thought up a witty ad lib by now... I think that Western uses
an alphabet, and is in effect a 'common sub-language', with somewhat
different conventional readings in each spoken dialect (note how
related all the W. "languages" are). In other words, it's "Malkioni
Latin". (Thought the idea of it being as cursive as Arabic and as
vowel-free (hence the dialect differences, in part) tickles me much
more than having it _look_ anything like Roman script.)
Cheers,
Alex.
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