Lars Marius Garshol wrote:

>
> * Peter T. Daniels
> |
> | What's a "topic map engine"?
>
> A piece of software that understands how to process topic maps.
> Topic maps are a way of organizing information. It's what was used to
> make this site: <URL: http://www.ontopia.net/i18n/index.jsp >.
>
> * Peter T. Daniels
> |
> | [...] and this list includes several abjads as well.
>
> * Lars Marius Garshol
> |
> | Which ones? I've used the information in D&B to create this list, but
> | the information given there is very incomplete when it comes to types.
>
> * Peter T. Daniels
> |
> | Obviously that's not correct, since the list contains several items not
> | even mentioned in WWS.
>
> That's true, but most of the list comes from WWS. The exceptions were
> found in different places. You still haven't answered my questions,
> though:
>
> a) Which of those scripts are not alphabets?

Um, you seem to have removed the list. IIRC Mandaic was on it, for one.

> b) How do you explain you're claim that the remaining ones are all a
> single script?

Historically, of course!

> | You guys, however, seem to want my *typology* to serve as a
> | *classification*; to divide the universe of writing systems, or
> | scripts, uniquely and exhaustively.
>
> That is a reasonable summary of my position.
>
> | Of course it doesn't do that and doesn't claim to do that; in
> | particular, it's not particularly relevant to scripts invented in
> | modern times by linguists (or others) who are well informed about
> | the structures of languages and of scripts.
>
> That's fair enough. Has anyone tried to create a classification of
> scripts?

As I said, it would be trivial. (Historically speaking.) Every history
of writing from Taylor's on contains a classification or historical
pedigree/dendrogram.

My favorite one is from a very large book in Serbocroatian from the mid
1950s with an enormous foldout plate at the back that's very detailed.
(No idea how it ended up at the University of Chicago Libraries, nor was
there a reason to list it in WWS!)

> | My typology is a typology and you (whoever it was whow were arguing
> | about it on the Unicode list) can't shoehorn everything into it as
> | if it were a classification.
>
> That's true, but my goal is not to do that, but to modify it to arrive
> at a satisfactory classification of scripts (the judge of what is
> satisfactory being me, of course). It seems that doing away with the
> "featural" class goes wsome way towards achieving this. Some scripts
> remain as problematic, but I don't think adding back the "featural"
> class would have solved anything.

Why would modifying something unsuited yield something suited? Wouldn't
it be better to start afresh? After all, your classification *doesn't*
seem to want to be historically based, so you're not limited to
"exaptation," building on what happens to be available!

> | Every article is signed. My typology is presented in Section 1,
> | which is written by me and no one else. Bill used the word
> | "alphasyllabary" in the articles about the part of the world he was
> | responsible for, and I explained the difference as I then understood
> | it in the footnote on p. 4.
>
> Reading the text again I see what you mean. I should have realized
> this before.
>
> | No typology includes both.
>
> That's a relief to hear. :-)

--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...