Marco Cimarosti wrote:

>
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > > Or, as C. F. Hockett put it, a logographic system is a syllabary
> > > > that distinguishes homophones.
> > >
> > > This sounds silly...
> > >
> > > How can Egyptian writing be called a "syllabary" (whatever
> > > it does or does not distinguish semantically)?
> >
> > No one supposes that it is ...
>
> *I* always thought that Egyptian hieroglyphic was a logographic system. Is
> this wrong? If it isn't, then Hockett's statement is wrong.
>
> As a programmer would put it:

You know what I think of programmers ...

> IF what I think about hieroglyphic is true
> AND what Hockett says about a logographic system is true
> THEN
> hieroglyphic is a syllabary
> ("that distinguishes homophones", incidentally).
> END
>
> > > Even Chinese characters, as used in Japanese, are in no way
> > > "syllabic": several On readings are by-syllabic, and Kun
> > > readings can be several syllables long.
> >
> > So who says kanji are a syllabary?
>
> According to the above quote from Hockett, either they are a syllabary or
> they are not a logographic system (or Hockett is wrong; or the quote is
> incorrect, e.g. it was limited to Chinese).

Egyptian isn't a syllabary. It denotes absolutely no vowels whatsoever.
It has a fairly minor logographic component.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...