Illustrations Hangul, Chinese, Quipu

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• Valerie's Writing System Page
• OzIdeas  http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/writintro.htm
• Writing Sys 1

           How difficult are the Japanese syllabaries compared to the English writing system?

              It is easier to learn a short list of signs than a long list,
              given that the complexity of the signs is similar.

              But let me point out that there are basically 47 (Hiragana) signs that a
              Japanese child has to learn. To get the 70-80 figure, you have to
              include signs that have been "marked" for voiced and unvoiced
              labialization, which only involves adding a couple small straight lines
              or a tiny circle to the right of some of the 47 known signs.

              So we are talking about learning 26 Roman signs vs 47 Kana signs (and
              some alphabets have almost as many signs as Japanese Kana -- Georgian:
              40 signs and Armenian: 38 signs). And, by the way, not of few of the
              Katakana signs are clearly graphically related to the already known
              Hiragana signs, just as a number of upper and lower case Roman letter
              signs are similar (while some are quite different, and require more
              effort to learn).

              In the end, there just isn't that much memory work involved with the
              process of learning the Japanese Kana scripts. The signs are generally
              simple enough, and the sound values are consistent enough (but not
              perfectly so -- just as the Roman alphabet isn't) that one can
              conceivably learn both the Kana systems within a week (or two) -- 
              even a kid of 4-5 years old. 

The Kana syllabary

Pure alphabets line consonant and vowel letters up on a given line of text, giving consonant and vowel signs pretty much equal space and prominence.  Semi-alphabets, as in Devanagari, the script in which Hindi appears (and countless other such scripts in the area I described before), gives preferential treatment to consonants.  By this I mean that many consonant signs are lined up on a line of text, and then vowel
"appendages" are added to those signs to denote the various vowels.  An unappended consonant sign has an intrinsic vowel value (usually "a").  To repress this intrinsic vowel value, a special sign is appended with makes the whole sign strictly consonantal.  Of course, for words beginning with vowel sounds, there is a complete set of different vowel signs, on a par with the consonant signs.  In the Tibetan semi-alphabet,
it is interesting to note that unlike the Devanagari script, there is only ONE independent vowel sign, and to that sign the SAME appended vowel marks may be added as are added to the consonant signs.  A very economical system, indeed.

The two Japanese syllabaries (i.e. Hiragana and Katakana), composed of 47+ signs, are actually derived from an ancient kind of Indian semi-alphabet ordering.  The signs themselves are abbreviated Chinese characters (logographs), but the order, in any Japanese dictionary, is right out of India.  The Indians attached an intrinsic value of "a" to all their consonant signs, as mentioned above, and ordered those signs in that basic form.  But in any such ordering, the vowel signs (used at the beginnings of words, primarily) came first, and so in typical (and traditional) Indian order, the 51 vowel and consonant signs would be arranged as follows:

(1-10)   A, A:, I, I:, U, U:, E, AI, O, AU
(11-16) AM., AH., R., R.:, L., L.:
(17-21)  KA, KHA, GA, GHA, NGA
(22-26)  CYA, CYHA, JYA, JYHA, NYA
(27-31)  T.A, T.HA, D.A, D.HA, N.A (all retroflexed)
(32-36)  TA, THA, DA, DHA, NA
(37-41)  PA, PHA, BA, BHA, MA
(42-45)  YA, RA, LA, VA
(46-49)  SHA, S.A, SA, HA
(50-51)  LLAM., KS.A

Of course, any of the consonant signs could be appended with various
vowel "tabs", making for many more possible sounds.  The above listing
is just the very basic dictionary order.  At any rate, the Japanese
liked the idea of a table of 50 Sounds (called GO-JYU-ON in Japanese)
and proceeded to borrow the basic system.  Problem was that Japanese has
far fewer sounds than Sanskrit (or practically any other language), so
something had to give.  The Japanese solution can be seen in the
following typical Japanese ordering:

(1-5)      A, I, U, E, O
(6-10)    KA, KI, KU, KE, KO
(11-15)  TSA, SI, TSU, SE, TSO (later > to SA, SHI, SU, SE, SO)
(16-20)  TA, TI, TU, TE, TO (later > to TA, CHI, TSU, TE, TO)
(21-25)  NA, NI, NU, NE, NO
(26-30)  PA, PI, PU, PE, PO (later > to HA, HI, HU, HE, HO)
(31-35)  MA, MI, MU, ME, MO
(36-38)  YA, YU, YO 
(39-43)  RA, RI, RU, RE, RO
(44-47)  WA, WI, WE, WO (later > to WA, YI, YE, WO,
              and then WA, I, U, (W)O

So the Japanese (47-sign) syllabary order, though modified considerably
to account for the paucity of sounds in Japanese, is nevertheless a
pretty accurate reflection of an Indian (51-sign) semi-alphabetic
model. 

              Of course we should have something (e.g. evidence of various sorts) to
              back up our claims, but as Ze mentions, some things boil down to common
              sense -- it is easier to learn a short list of signs than a long list,
              given that the complexity of the signs is similar.

              But let me point out that there are basically 47 (Hiragana) signs that a
              Japanese child has to learn. To get the 70-80 figure, you have to
              include signs that have been "marked" for voiced and unvoiced
              labialization, which only involves adding a couple small straight lines
              or a tiny circle to the right of some of the 47 known signs.

              So we are talking about learning 26 Roman signs vs 47 Kana signs (and
              some alphabets have almost as many signs as Japanese Kana -- Georgian:
              40 signs and Armenian: 38 signs). And, by the way, not of few of the
              Katakana signs are clearly graphically related to the already known
              Hiragana signs, just as a number of upper and lower case Roman letter
              signs are similar (while some are quite different, and require more
              effort to learn).

              In the end, there just isn't that much memory work involved with the
              process of learning the Japanese Kana scripts. The signs are generally
              simple enough, and the sound values are consistent enough (but not
              perfectly so -- just as the Roman alphabet isn't) that one can
              conceivably learn both the Kana systems within a week (or two) -- even a
              kid of 4-5 years old. Of course, as with Roman letters, consistent use
              of the signs (usually) guarantees the kids (or adults) won't forget the
              signs thus learned. Most educational failures are caused more by bad
              follow-up and lack of practice than bad (initial) teaching. Most kids
              are so fast and so interested in learning (anything) that you could
              probably get the elements of nuclear physics across to them at a very
              early age. But then, another (worse) problem is that teachers refrain
              from teaching certain things (and wait to do so at the "proper" time),
              and so the kids don't even get a chance to forget many many things. 
              Pity.

              David 

	Korean Hangul - What if English were written in a similar script?
	English written in Chinese characters

              To gain a little perspective on how the other half (i.e. non-native
              users) live, it may help to analyze some vowel sounds the "Japanese"
              way. We can start by listing the major vowel phonemes in standard
              Japanese (but not necessarily in all forms of Japanese). Such phonemes
              would include (using their "Italian" values): a. i, u, e, and o. There
              are allophones of these sounds in certain phonological contexts, but I
              will ignor them for the moment. Now, given the paucity of vowel
              phonemes, something has to "give" in order for the Japanese to have a
              chance of even representing the sounds of English (in ther Kana
              systems), much less pronounce the sounds. So what "gives" is a
              recognition of the English spelling system itself, where "short" (but
              often actaully "lax") vowels are followed by a double consonant, and
              "long" (but often actually "tense") vowels, with their "alphabet-order"
              values, are followed by single consonants.

              The "double/single" distinctions are important because Japanese spelling
              has something similar: geminated consonants, where the preceeding vowel
              is, in fact, slightly shortened, compared to the vowels preceeding
              ungeminated consonants. So what this means is that the fictitious
              "long/short" vowel distinctions that English school teachers talk so
              much about (but which professional linguists don't recognize) have been
              taken to heart by Japanese linguists who want to represent the sounds of
              English in Kana (the syllabic writing systems used in Japan). Well, and
              there are no geminated consonants in English either, but the Japanese
              treat English sounds as if there were.

              What this boils down to is the following list of representations, which
              I have romanized for the members' convenience:

              "a" in "shan't" is represented by AA
              "u" in "sun" is represented by A (+ gemination marker)
              "a" in "cat" is represented by (I)YA

              "ei" in "seine" is represented by EI
              "e" in "send" is represented by E (+ gemination marker)

              "ee" in "seen" is represented by II
              "i" in "sin" is represented by I (+ gemination marker) 

              "aw" in "sawn" is represented by OO
              "o" in "sonnet" is represented by O (+ gemination marker)

              "oo" in "soon" is represented by UU
              "oo" in "soot" is represented by U (+ gemination marker)

              The gemination marker seen in Kana, which is actually a small version of
              the sign for TSU is usually romanized by a doubling of the following
              vowel, but there are some exceptions. English "sun" would be romanized
              as SAN (because the N in Japanese is completely different from an
              English final N), while English "cut" would be represented by KATTO. 
              English "cat" would be KYATTO.

              Anyway, finally getting to the representation of words with the "AW"
              sound (which is actually the point of this message), the following
              representations can be found:

              English "awe" is OO
              English "law" and "raw" are ROO
              English "draw" is DOROO
              English "Hawthorn" is HOOSOON

              So, to a non-native user of English, the double O of "aw" may not seem
              so wierd. In fact, the scheme described above is the basis of my own
              New Romaji system, which may be examined by going to:
              .

              Best regards,

              David

              PS "drawring" is definitely found in the eastern part of New York State
              (US). I'm from New York State, but from an area two dialect areas away
              from New York City, where "drawring" is common. The hypercorrection you
              mentioned is found in New England, and among a number of famous speakers
              of dialects with hypercorrected "r" perhaps John Kennedy, the former
              president, stands out. He always added an "r" to all words with a final
              (schwa) vowel, such as "sofa" and "soda", but he just couldn't ever
              manage to put one (an "r" sound, that is) where it belonged -- for
              example, at the end of "car" and "star", etc. Well, nobody's perfect, I
              guess. 

I see a mistake in the message I just sent. In the following:

              "The gemination marker seen in Kana, which is actually a small version
              of
              the sign for TSU is usually romanized by a doubling of the following
              vowel, but there are some exceptions. English "sun" would be romanized"

              the mistake involves "doubling the following vowel" which should be
              "doubling the following CONSONANT.

              Sorry for the confusion
 
 

               >The AW sound is problematic for those building a notation.
               o: or oo works but looks a little odd in some words.
               o:l the doctrz wrr on co:l.

               The world ses /o/ for short O. The brits and the hole commonwelth say /o/
               for short O. Sum parts in the US tu, so i dont think there is enny point in
               considring this american anommaly /a:/ FOR O for spelling reform purposes,
               since not eeven in the US it is genral and eeven amung the /a:/ speekers
               dont work all the time.
 
 
 

To be moved.

                 Tom Zurinskas wrote: 

                     TRUESPEL VERSION

                     U dispyyuet wunts urroez betwween thu wind and thu sun, wich wuz thu 
                     straunger uv thu tue, and thae ugrreed tue poot thu point aan this ishue, 
                     that wicchever suenist maed thu travler taek auf hiz kloek, shood bee 
                     ukkountid thu mor paawerfool. Thu wind beeggan, and blue withh aul hiz miet 
                     and maed u blast, koeld and feers az u thhrashing storm: but thu straunger 
                     hee blue, thu kloeser thu bravler rapd hiz kloek urround him, and thu tieter 
                     hee graspd it withh hiz handz. Then broek out thu sun: withh hiz welkim 
                     beemz hee disppoezd thu vaeper and thu koeld; thu travler felt thu jeenyool 
                     wormthh and az thu sun shoen brieter and brieter, hee sat doun, oeverkkum 
                     withh thu heet and kast hiz kloek aan thu ground.

Critique:  Truespel shows stress by doubling the consonant before the stressed syllable when stress is not regular, e.g. not on the first syllable.  As a consequence, the Truespel version takes up more space.  Truespel uses almost the same grapheme-phoneme correspondence table as ALC Fonetic.  Truespell isolates 40 phonemes - fewer than Fonetic. 
 

                    SPANGLISH VERSION
                    A dyspyut wans arowz betwin the wind and the san,
                    which was the stronger ov the twu, and they agrid tu
                    put the point on thys yshu, that whychever sunist meid
                    the travler taek of hyz clowk, shud bi acounted the
                    mor powerful. The wynd began, and blu with ol hyz
                    mait and meid a blast, cowld and fiers as a thrashen
                    storm; but the stronger hi blu, the clowsr the travler
                    rapt hiz clowk araund him, and the taiter hi graspt it
                    with hiz handz. Then browk aut the san: with hyz
                    welcom bimz hi dyspowzd the vapor and the cowld; the
                    travler felt the jinyal warmth and az the san shown
                    braiter and braiter, hi sat daun, overcom with the
                    hit, and kast hyz clowk on the graund.

                    Critique:  This version of Spanglish uses y for the short i and schwi.  This eliminates the usual long-short ambiguity at least for [i: i].  a, e, o, u  continue to have a long short ambiguity which can be eliminated by adding a period marker or diacritic for the short checked vowels.

                    w is used for the short u sound in hook.  v can be used for the sound in cup.  Using consonants and semi-vowels as vowels is problematic only when they are doubled.  The hooks sound rarely comes at the beginning of a word or syllable, thus w can retain its usual function.  There are words where both the consonant and vowel appear as in wwd and wwl.  VY had some fun with this one but exaggerated the impact by also using w for u: There is really no problem with the positional W since this is the way it works in TES.  It has two values in [willow] in the initial position it is a consonant in the terminal position it represents a short u or hook sound.  Spanglish uses the vowel W in the medial position as well.  [wwly wilow].  v fpr /^/ is more of a problem since v can come at the end of a word.  [sleiv=slave].  [v v] could only be [of] because /^/ is checked and cannot show up in the terminal position. 
                    There is no [Thv] as in Truespel which merges /v/ and /'schwa /. 

                    This version also consistently marks [owe] instead of merging it with [awe].  e.g., cowld instead of cold.   So what is wrong with Spanglish?  Like all notations it is a compromise.  To make it shorter, simpler, and more like TES, Spanglish has departed from the phonemic ideal of one sound per symbol.  In Spanglish, lmnr are always semi-vowels or syllabic consonants and pronounced as such.  uhl, uhm, uhn, uhr.    hurt becomes hrt.  rut becomes r-r-rut.  The semi vowel role of y and w has been
expanded.   wwd differs from wd by having a bilabial stop.  Reducing wwd to wd would be similar to the reduction of yuse to use.

                    Many cases of irregular stress could be marked by simply clarifying when e, a, and i were used as schwa or schwi.  be'gaen or bi'gan or b'gan instead of beeggan.  a'grid / uggreed.   bi'twin / betwween. There are probably more problems with Spanglish than listed here.  Please send in your comments. 

Yes we believe that there is a code that has yet to be broken.  It was so simple to create an English based code that one should not rule out the possibility that there might also be a sound code for quechuan.  Quechuen is phonemically simpler than English [fewer vowels] so the task would be easier.  

See if you can figure out how to write sentence in a colored know or colored bead code.

> I also had a question.
> Is there any relationship between the code that
> you worked out and the quechuen code?

Nobody has published convincing arguments that the South American quipu
encoded language alphabetically (or syllabically), even though it has
been suggested, several times, in the literature.  But a colleague,
Margarita B. Marin-Dale, who was born in Peru and has a strong interest
in everything related to the Quechua (i.e. Inca) people and culture,
once asked me if it was possible to encode language, alphabetically, in
quipu-like form, so I did it as an intellectual exercise, just to show
that it could be done.  Naturally, I used my own language as a test
case.  But in some regards, it would be easier to encode Quechua than
English.

Anyway, since I was able to do it, then there must be SOME 
relationship,
but not of the type that demonstrates any great probability for the
quipu encoding language.  Actually, the non-color version of encoded
English is probably more "quipu-like" (although only the knots are 
shown
in the file I am sending -- not the complete non-color system).

> In most cases the quipu is described as a way
> to remember numbers.  Did they ever use it to
> encode anything close to speech sounds?

Yes, as I noted above, there is mention of its use for such purposes,
but no convincing proof.  Margarita and I both think that the "proof" 
is
staring us in the face, but we just don't see it -- a matter of how the
conventional quipu are viewed.

> Do you have something similar for Mayan.

Although I haven't done it, it would be easy to write English in Maya
glyphs.  The Maya glyphs include a perfectly serviceable syllabary, so 
I
would use the Japanese example of representing English in syllabic 
form,
and model any Maya -glyph-based system for encoding English on that
system.  Should be a piece of cake.  Well, there are websites that
convert English personal names into phonetic Maya glyphs, just as there
are for converting English names into Egyptian alphabetic glyphs.

Best regards,

David