Re: script count?

John Hudson wrote:

>
> At 04:37 AM 12/12/2003, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> >This involves nothing but a very strange definition of "script." No one
> >denies that there are four or more components of the Japanese writing
> >system, each with its own function. But to call the components "scripts"
> >is nothing short of bizarre.
>
> How would *you* define or use the term 'script'?
>
> I don't have a problem with the idea that the Japanese writing system uses
> characters from four different scripts. A script is a superset of signs,
> and it isn't unusual for a language to be written with a subset (just as
> English is written with the subset of the Latin script).

No, it's written with the English alphabet.

> Japanese happens
> to be written with the whole set of two scripts (katakana and hiragana) and
> a subset of two other scripts (Han characters -- or whatever you want to
> call them -- and Latin).

No, it's written with a couple of syllabaries and a batch of logograms.
Why do you need further labels?

> What different term do you think should be used in
> describing these relationships of particular writing systems to supersets
> of related signs?

Maybe the "supersets" are artifacts. (What's the opposite of the
Gouldian sense of "spandrel" -- something that turns up as a byproduct
of something else but is rather useless, like all that filler DNA in a
chromosome?)
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...