At 11:33 PM 1/21/2003 +0100, Lars Marius Garshol wrote:

* i18n
|
| I wonder if there is any sort of correlation among the historical
| use of certain categories of writing systems with certain categories
| of languages.

* Peter T. Daniels
|
| Yes. There is no such correlation.

It seems to me that in most cases when a script begins to be used to
write some language the users of that language either adopt or adapt
an existing script and that they usually do not look around for a
suitable candidate, but pick the one most obvious to them. It also
seems that very rarely when adapting an existing script do they change
it to such an extent that the new script belongs to a different
category.

Having selected a writing system, do separate languages tend to evolve in similar directions (Not necessarily merge, but in a similar direction)? This would indicate some correlation it seems.

For instance,  I have heard it stated that English has evolved to its present subject-verb-object form other combinations since roughly the middle ages. That was well after a writing system was selected, and after the same writing system was being used for other languages. Has there been any sort of convergence in the grammars or other aspects of those languages since the similar writing systems were adopted?

Barry Caplan
www.i18n.com