Re: Number of writing systems

suzmccarth wrote:

>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, Michael Everson <everson@...> wrote:
> > Suzanne,
> >
> > I think it's odd that your argument is an appeal to a 1989 and a 1968
> > authority. Neither SignWriting nor Blissymbolics were available to
> > those researchers, so it is hardly surprising that they did not take
> > such non-phonic writing systems into account.
>
> Blissymbolics were used in Ontario in the 70's. Is there some reason
> Coulmas would not have access to this knowledge? I believe Bliss
> published in 1949.
>
> Bliss was inspired by his perception of Chinese as a ideographic
> writing system. However, since DeFrancis published Visible Speech in
> 1989, writing systems have been considered to represent *phonology*
> in one way or another. The ideographic myth, the notion that a
> writing system could represent language independent of phonology,
> was challenged by DeFrancis.

This idea certainly didn't begin with DeFrancis -- it was recognized by
DuPonceau in 1838, and the modern locus classicus is the debate between
Creel and Boodberg in the 1930s. (I think one of them published in T'ung
Pao and the other in a journal with Harvard in the title, but maybe
not.) The refs. are probably in his *The Chinese Language: Fact and
Fantasy* of 1985 if not in the later more general book.

> Some of these matters are worth discussing but your bibliography
> suggests that you are not interested in Bloomfield, Chao, DeFrancis,
> Sproat, etc.
>
> I realize that I was also scolded last year for not having read the
> right stuff. However, I at least have the sense to go back and do
> so. Reread it, in my case.
>
> > >I was trying to stay out of it but I have caved. There is agreement
> > >in the academic community on writing sytems,
> >
> > Is there, indeed?
>
> The published academic community usually acknowledges a degree of
> consensus here, and if variation from that consensus is presented,
> then this is noted.
> >
> > >"Every writing is language specific in the sense that
> > >phoneticization means to create systematic relations between
> > >graphical signs and the sound pattern of a given language." -- The
> > >Writing Systems of the World by Florian Coulmas, 1989, page 33
> >
> > Coulmas' definition is incomplete. Not all languages use sounds. Sign
> > languages do not use sound, though they have analogues to phonemes
> > and they certainly have grammar. And they can be *written*.
> > SignWriting is a writing system, a real writing system, which is used
> > by people all over the world.
>
> There is no doubt these systems are important and worth discussing.
> The terminology is opaque, and may have led to some
> misunderstanding.
>
> > I cannot fathom how anyone could suggest with a straight face that
> > IPA is not a "writing system".
>
> It does not represent a given language, so it would not be used as a
> first literacy for any language community. It does not represent
> phonemes, but phonetics. However, I must remind myelf that you are
> not familiar with Kenneth Pike either. It is one thing to disagree,
> I am all for that, but downright unwillingness to be a student of
> writing systems, that is intolerable.

Actually the Principles say they have attempted to provide a graph for
every sound _that is distinctive_ in some language or other -- it's not
meant for transcriptions on a level much below the phonemic.
Phoneticians have devised other transcription systems that are better
suited for recording minute differences in speech sounds.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...