It´s not that simple. There are lots of cases where writing systems that
are highly inappropriate for a particular language have been adopted or
even invented.
A case that immediately comes to mind are the Scandinavic runes. The older
24-sign runic alphabet was well suited to the germanic languages. Then,
sometime around the 8th century CE it was replaced by the 16-sign younger
runic alphabet in Scandinavia. This was highly inappropriate to Old Norse,
lacking several common sounds and having spelling rules that made things
even worse, for example the correct way to spell "England" in runes is
"Aklat" while "bonde" (husband) is "buta" (both rather common words in
runic inscriptions by the way). If we didn't know better it would be very
tempting to argue that the younger runes were obviously invented for a
language that did not have e. g. "e", "o" or "ng". However they were
created by Norse for writing Norse and used extensively for half a
millenium. Actually if we didn't have Old Icelandic for comparison reading
runic inscriptions would be extremely difficult, even as it is sometimes
impossible to be sure about some ambiguous passages, such as "sakumukmini"
on the Rök stone (the longest of all runic inscriptions) this may mean
either "saegu mogminni" (say the ancient tale) or "saegum ungmenni" (tell
the young men)!
Tommy Tyrberg
----------
> Från: markodegard@...
> Till: cybalist@egroups.com
> Ämne: [cybalist] Re: Linear A
> Datum: den 9 november 1999 09:43
>
Sleepless at 2:30 AM, I've reviewed this posting and see I have to
follow-up to myself.
Disclaimer: This is just from what I've read.
Linear B is derived from Linear A. While we have yet to decipher Linear A,
we have a few hints, mostly from Linear B.
Linear B was adapted to serve an IE-language. The changes from Linear A
suggest this. The point is that Linear A was hopelessly inadequate to cope
with an IE language.
Since Linear B has no closed syllables, we may assume Linear A had no
closed syllables. A closed syllable is a word like 'cat' or 'soul'; a
closed syllable can include a diphthong. Can you imagine an IE language
without closed syllables?
Linear B was adapted from Linear A. The theory requires us to realize that
B was major innovation, the taking of something totally unsuited to an IE
language and making it minimally adequate to the task of representing an IE
language.
Mark Odegard.
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