From: Alex Ferguson (abf@cs.ucc.ie)
Date: Fri 27 Oct 2000 - 14:10:17 EEST
Julian Lord:
> BUT I am not so convinced that Ice Age Brithini (actually,
> pre-Ice Age : this is Golden Age Brithini, isn't it?) used an
> alphabetic script.
I dunno, which do you mean? The Ice Age is the Lesser Darkness/
Storm Age in "comparative Ages" terms, yes. Such a contention
is getting into the realm of the imponderable, however. No
mortal would have any useful knowledge of such a script (and the
immortals ain't telling).
> The basic unresolved problem is whether the Malkioni continue
> to use the 'Core Runes' as idiograms or not : if so, then written
> "modern Brithini" isn't fully alphabetic (because key concepts
> would be routinely written with those idiograms, which are very
> basically unlike the abbreviations used in Latin manuscripts and
> early printed texts) and, more importantly, would seem to point to
> Golden and Ice Age Brithini (and perhaps 17th century Old Brithini)
> having a basically idiographic/logographic script, although such
> a script would have an alphabet attached (not a syllabary, because
> that wouldn't have developed into the modern Malkioni alphabet) for
> such concepts that lack an idiogram, and acronyms, etc, etc.
I disagree. While I concur that "runes" (core or otherwise) are used
> If this is wrong, then another interesting question arises : the Core
Well, they're "ideo-"s, but clearly they're not "-grams" in any
in modern grimoires, that hardly means that the modern script has
"devolved" from a ideographic one, at least by any manifest route.
More likely they _are_ used as abbreviations, or more to the point
for added precision of reference, in the manner that mathematicians
like to cannibalise other alphabets for symbols that they can them
give precisely nailed down meanings to.
> Runes *are* idiograms. Where then would they come from ?
strong sense; they're not a writing system, and seem to me to be
unlikely to be derived from one.
> Which (prehistoric?) Gloranthan language and/or writing system
Neither a language, nor a writing system. Rather, the use of
symbology in the round.
> was so culturally important that its Runes became the basis
> of the Runic systems of about half of Genertela?
GCD(all of them). Probably the Theyalans are the biggest contributors,
having themselves gone through something of a 'compilation exercise'
earlier. But the whole point was looking for commonalities, after all.
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