Hello. Piotr.
Thank you very much for your answer and links.
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There seems to be a vague symbolism of
the kind you describe in the Roman alphabet, and little wonder, since if
characters are somewhat mnemonic (say, a round shape for a rounded vowel) they
are easier to learn; also, in the course of history new letters have sometimes
arisen as variants of already existing ones corresponding to phonetically
similar sounds, e.g. <U>, <V>, <W>, or <I>, <J> in
the Roman script, or omikron and omega in Greek. Latin originally had the
same letter <C> for [k] and [g], and <G> was introduced as a
modification of <C> by Emperor Claudius. But generally the phonetic value
of a letter is not predictable from its shape -- note the characteristic
differences between the Roman script and closely related writing systems (Greek,
Etruscan, Cyrillic) or very different phonetic values of the same character or
combination of characters in various languages using the same
script.
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Great that you see some symbolism.
I don't pretend graphic symbolism to be universal, I mean
there could be several systems
as it happens with phonems, words and sintax. I would like to
know if for languages that
have been using an alfabet for a long
enough period of time can can be recognized
symbolic traits on theirs graphs be them phonetic, phonemic, syllabic or a mix.
Also, the symbolism i'm speaking about from my point of view
is more clear for some
lower-case handwrited alfabets than for
capitals. The point would be a psychological
unconscious motivation guiding the evolutions of
handwriting.
In Spanish we had the <x> letter for a fricative sound,
but there was a reform
of the alfabet as proposed by Andrés Bello and done in
Chile, afterwards that
reform failed, but from it came the change of <x> for
<j> for the fricative sound,
curiosly the new letter enters better in the paradigm of
representing fricative
sounds -as seems to happen with <f> <s> and
<z>- by ondulatory or zig-zag traits
of the strokes.
Particularly the <c> and also <v> would
be exceptions (to the treats i suggested
where for interrupts and fricative) but these two letters
are ambiguous in their
readings, what, then, reinforces rather than weaken
the hypothesis of graphic
symbolism.
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A consistent phonetic alphabet showing in
an iconic fashion the articulatory features of sounds was invented in the mid
19th century (ca. 1867) by the Scottish teacher Alexander Melville Bell, father
of Alexander Graham Bell (the same who emigrated to America, invented the
telephone and established the Bell Telephone Company, now AT&T). It was
called Bell's Visible Speech, and had its ardent enthusiasts, including some
British phoneticians of the time and George Bernard Shaw, who mentions it in
"Pygmalion":
HIGGINS [to Pickering]. ... I'll shew you
how I make records. We'll set her talking; and I'll take it down first in Bell's
Visible Speech; then in broad Romic; and then we'll get her on the phonograph
...
The character of Higgins owes much to the
great phonetician Henry Sweet, who modified BVS to create the even more
scientific Organic Speech system.
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I think that Bell's idea of visible speech is quite near of
that of king Sejong,
for hang-gul, in 1443 as it relies on a symbolic
representation of articulatory traits.
For example, from the second link you
gave:
«The fundamental consonant symbol chosen by Mr. Bell is a curve,
open on
one side, a C. This typifies an obstruction to the free pas-
sage of the
breath, effected, within the oral cavity, by the approximation
of the mouth
organs, of tongue and palate, or of lip and lip. In the
position of a C, it
signifies an approach of the back part of the tongue
to the soft palate, such
as produces the German sound of c/i in ac/i;
turned over, with the curve up,
a like approach of a point on the for-
ward surface of the tongue (Mr. Bell
gives it the technical name of
front) to the neighboring hard palate,
producing the German c/i
sound in ic/i; with the curve turned under, the near
application of the
point of the tongue behind the teeth; with the curve to
the right, the ap-
proach of lip to lip. If the opening of the curve is
closed by a straight
line drawn across its ends, complete closure of the
organs, forming a
surd mute, is intimated; in the C-position, a k; in the Q -
position,
a t; in the a-position, a p.»
But <c> is actualy an ambiguous graph
(as your have pointed it had
the /k/ and /g/ sounds in latin, and has the
/k/ and /q/ sounds in
Spanish) and being without vertical strokes (that <k>
has), and not showing
zig-zag (as
<z> does) but being round as (are <e> or <o>) i think it would
be better suited for
symbolizing a vowel sound than for a
consonant.
any case I wouldn't suggest
to change it, except if someone happened
to suggest
changing it
to another system.
I
don't know exactly wich phonemic or phonetic or articulatory
or
may be overall perception trait should be related
to the kind of graphic
symbolism of the letters i am speaking about.
Let's explain that i was
trying to think of a system as the one of Bell but
representing the aspects
of sounds that are seen on the spectrograms and then
giving them a more
natural (cursive) shape when i
realized that the alfabet itsefl had that features.
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I've found some useful online information
relevant to you query.
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Yes. Thank you.
Yours,
Mariano
Santander - Cantabria