Re: Number of writing systems

At 20:19 -0400 2005-09-16, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> > I don't know enough about Blissymbolics to make such a judgement; I was
>> figuring there might be a problem because I *thought* Blissymbolics
>> isn't language-specific (i.e. it doesn't encode utterances), but like I
>> said, I don't know enough.
>
>Right. It's supposed to be an extralinguistic semantic system.
>("Semiotic" may not yet have been known in Bliss's day.)

Bliss is a truly ideographic language which can be used by
non-speaking people. It doesn't represent phonemes (and many of its
users cannot utter phonemes) but it is *writing* certainly.

> > >>And I'd have considered it an extended use of Latin, actually.
>
>"Latin" is just the 22 or so letters of the Latin alphabet. It might be
>an extended roman, but not really.

Peter, you know that most of us consider "Latin" to refer to "the
Latin script" not "the Latin alphabet", so please don't offend by
"correcting" us when we use this term.

>English & Spanish _are_ different writing systems with almost the same
>script, no?

No. They are languages with orthographies using different subsets of
the Latin script.

>(It's rarely important to make this distinction.)

On the contrary, it is very often necessary to make this distinction,
for clarity, computer locales, input methods, and fonts.

>Neither IPA nor Visible Speech is a writing system -- it isn't used for
>writing, just phonetic transcription.

Phonetic transcription is, of course, "writing". Don't confuse
"writing" with "natural orthography".
--
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com