Re: Number of writing systems

Lars Marius Garshol wrote:

>
> * Mark E. Shoulson
> |
> | I note that Shavian is there, but Visible Speech isn't.
>
> The artificial scripts section is admittedly somewhat spotty. The
> phonetics part is even worse.
>
> | Nor Blissymbolics.
>
> Yep.
>
> | Does the IPA count as a writing system, or is it just an extended
> | form of Latin?
>
> I'd consider it a phonetic writing system, like Dania. (Whether it
> should count or not depends what you want to count. :)
>
> | And the International Teaching Alphabet? And Unifon?
>
> Dunno.
>
> | We have Rongorongo, but not the Phaistos disk inscription. Does
> | that count as a writing system?
>
> It's not clear that it is one, and almost nothing is known about it,
> so I've preferred to leave it out.

Emmett Bennett said that if we included a picture of it in WWS, he'd
refuse to write that chapter ...

BTW I tried to ask him a question recently and his son (the Africanist
Patrick Bennett, who wrote an interesting Comparative Semitic Manual)
told me he now has periods of lucidity but was moving to (apparently) an
assisted living center in Austin, where he could be contacted through
Tom Palaima.

I met him in Madison in '97 -- I think he wasn't 90 yet.

> | The question is probably no easier to resolve than how many angels
> | can dance on the head of a pin, but I suppose any list is a start.
>
> What's really needed is some definition of what it is that's being
> counted. Given that it's possible to produce a matching list.

The counter would have to give the arbitrary definition of what s/he
chose to count, since boundaries between script variants are as strict
as they are between language variants.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...