At 06:12 PM 8/12/2003 -0400, John Cowan <cowan@...> napsal:

>I urge the community to examine and comment on the newly released Unicode
>4.0 explanations on pp. 148-151, currently available online in PDF
>form (not printable) in
>http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode4.0.0/ch06.pdf .

Well, there seems to be quite a bit of nice documentation...
although, I personally have some nitpicky things to disagree with in
there... especially regarding the classification of Korean hangul, the
typology of the syllabary, and to some degree the "definition" for 'syllabary'.
It's a handy starting point, but I would think that for a forum
such as this, which is definitely dedicated to those with high interest
and/or specialization in scripts and related issues, that a much more
comprehensive and detailed write-up could be provided.

>Explanations of many of these terms are given there, specifically alphabet,
>abjad, syllabary, abugida, logosyllabary, and notational system.

And yet, there's much that is also missing... From what I've
noticed, many non-specialists' posts often take terminology from older
texts or random internet texts that often are not necessarily contemporary
or currently considered to be accurate.
Having read the posts in this group, there's a lot more
information to be had that could be edited to provide readily available
information...

>There is also another comment on the term "ideograph" here:
>
> This unit [of the Han script] has variously been referred to as an
> 'ideograph' ("idea writing") or a 'logograph' ("word writing"),
> as well as other terms. No single term is completely satisfactory
> or uncontroversial. In this staandard, 'CJK ideograph' is used
> because it is a widely understood term.

"widely understood term"... once again, it comes down to that
"Lowest Common Denominator" business, if a community that specializes in a
subject has particular parlance with its issues, etc. and has controversy
or dissatisfaction with terminology or jargon regarding said field,
shouldn't they be the ones to spur the movement to correct such
inconsistencies or inaccuracies? or at least to provide rationale for
otherwise non-conventionalized (in the mainstream) use?

cheers,
-Patrick