Send in your submissions now! Due date is May 20!

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     Twenty-eighth Internationalization and Unicode Conference (IUC28)

       Unicode 4.1 - Multilingual Challenges and Solutions for 2006

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          Unicode 4.1 - Multilingual Challenges and Solutions for 2006

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On Fri, 06 May 2005 15:52:29 -0400, Peter T. Daniels
<grammatim@...> wrote:

> What is Nushu? Is that a Chinese name for Yi?

ALmost on a whim, I tried Googling; here's one hit that I thought
Qalamites might like:
<http://www.ancientscripts.com/nushu.html>

It's not only Chu Nom (diacritics omitted) that's an endangered writing
system (of course...)

Regards,

--
Nicholas Bodley  /*|*\ Waltham, Mass. (Not "MA")
The curious hermit -- autodidact and polymath
If you're determined to be afraid, choose wisely
what to be afraid of.

Hi all - just came across this on the Straight Dope web site at
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mindusscript.html

Comments, currently not really on point for qalam, are available at
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=315899

Best,

Barry
-------------------------------------------------

A Staff Report by the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board
How come we can't decipher the Indus script?

10-May-2005

Dear Straight Dope:

I just got a book on ancient civilizations. In the chapter dealing with
written languages, they list Egyptian hieroglyphics, Mesopotamian
pictographs, and Indus script as the three oldest known written
languages. The book goes on to say Indus script has never been
deciphered even though over 2,500 examples of it exist. Maybe I've
watched too many sci-fi movies where a master linguist deciphers alien
languages, but I really thought we had terrestrial languages mastered.
What's the deal with Indus script? Is the art of linguistics still held
hostage by our inability to decipher ancient languages without a "key" à
la the Rosetta Stone? --Troy Dayton, Fargo, ND

SDSTAFF bibliophage replies:

Too much science fiction? No such thing. Star Trek, for example, teaches
us that a good communications officer can send a message that transcends
mere language, especially if she has legs down to here and a hemline up
to there. Mmmmm. Mm-HMMMmmmmm . . . er, sorry. Was I saying something?

Yes, I was. The Indus script, which was written in and around Pakistan
over a period of several centuries centered around 2500 B.C., is the
most famous undeciphered script, but there are many others. Other
mystery writing systems include Linear A (Greece, 1800 B.C.), Zapotec
(Mexico, 500 B.C.), Meroitic (Sudan, 300 B.C.), Isthmian (Central
America, A.D. 200), Rongorongo (Easter Island, A.D. 1800) and Joycean
(Ireland, A.D. 1900). Okay, maybe not that last one.

Why haven't they been deciphered? It's instructive to look at some
deciphered scripts to see what makes the enigmatic writing of the Indus
valley different. Script decipherment is not as easy as it's made out to
be in science fiction--and sometimes not as easy as it's made out to be
in history books. Chances are the impression you took away from school
was that the Rosetta stone made it child's play to decipher Egyptian
hieroglyphics. Not so. How many schools teach that some of the best
minds in the world pored over the Rosetta stone for a quarter century
before it finally revealed its secrets?

One of the biggest obstacles was that the ancient Egyptians used a
writing system unlike anything known when the Rosetta stone was
discovered in 1799. Scholars knew about logographic systems like
Chinese, where there are thousands of symbols, each normally
representing a whole word or idea. They knew about alphabetic systems
like Hebrew and English, where there are typically 20 to 30 symbols,
each normally representing one consonant or vowel. Some scholars may
have known about syllabaries, with several dozen symbols each
representing one syllable, as in Japanese hiragana and katakana. But
Egyptian hieroglyphics had too many distinct symbols to be an alphabet
or syllabary, and too few to be logographic.

The decipherment published by Champollion in 1823 (building on work by
many others, including Thomas Young) showed that Egyptian hieroglyphics
were (neglecting some complications) a logo-phonetic system. In such a
writing system, any given symbol can represent either an entire idea or
word, or the sound (or initial sound) of that word. Some simple ideas
can be expressed efficiently with a drawing of the object or an object
it's associated with. But to express an abstract idea that can't be
readily drawn, you can use a string of sounds. Suppose you want to
express the English word "charitable" without an alphabet. You could
draw a picture of a chair and a table (since "chair table" sounds sort
of like "charitable"). This is the rebus principle. Today we may
consider rebus puzzles to be nothing but a silly game, but to the
ancients, they were a natural way to write a language. Other early
scripts, like Mayan hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiform, are built on
the same principle.

The rebus approach may seem an unwieldy way to write a language, but
it's a step up from non-linguistic pictograms. A picture of a chair and
a table can only convey "chair and table," or at best an idea associated
with a chair and table, such as the act of sitting down at a table. An
abstract concept such as "charitable" is difficult to get across using
pictograms. Writing systems built on the rebus system are a way of
filling the void, but have the drawback (for us latter-day translators)
that, unlike pictograms, they'll only work in one language. For a
speaker of Latin, for example, pictograms of a chair (in Latin, sella)
and a picture of a table (mensa) would never suggest the word for
charitable (benignus).

I go into such detail about logo-phonetic systems because the Indus
script appears to have about the right number of distinct symbols (250
to 400, depending on who's counting) to use this system. Knowing that,
shouldn't it be easier to decipher the Indus script? Not really--the
decipherers of Egyptian hieroglyphics had the help of the Rosetta stone,
a bilingual or bitext (parallel texts of the same message in the unknown
script and a known script). No bitext for the Indus script has yet been
found.

A bitext is no guarantee that decipherment will be easy. Take the case
of Etruscan writing, found in Italy. At a superficial level the script
is easily deciphered, since the letters are close in form to archaic
Greek and Latin alphabets. But the language remains largely
uninterpreted. What's the difference? Given a piece of Etruscan writing,
we have no difficulty pronouncing the words, but no idea what most of
the words mean (think of a trained politician reading off a
TelePrompTer). The trouble is that Etruscan is apparently unrelated to
any language understood today. Champollion, the decipherer of Egyptian
hieroglyphics, had the advantage of knowing Coptic, which he correctly
suspected was the descendant of the ancient Egyptian language. Etruscan
has left no descendants.

The dozens of Etruscan bitexts (with Latin, Greek, or Phoenician) aren't
very helpful. All they really tell you is that a given block of
mysterious text means such-and-such. There's no sure way to tell which
Etruscan word corresponds to which word in the parallel text, since the
order of ideas and number of words vary widely among the different
languages. All is not lost, however. If, for example, a Latin word
occurs several times in a text and a mystery word occurs the same number
of times in the corresponding Etruscan text, you may be justified in
supposing that they mean the same thing. But beware--often the two
messages in a bilingual text are just paraphrases of each other, not
word-for-word translations. Still, using methods like this, together
with glosses (explicit translations of individual words in the
documents), scholars have been able to determine--or at least make a
reasonable guess at--the meanings of a couple hundred Etruscan words.

If we understand the language or a close relative or descendant of the
language, it ought to be pretty easy to decipher the script, right? Not
so fast. The Rongorongo script used on Easter Island after European
contact almost certainly represents Rapa Nui, the well known Polynesian
language of the Easter Islanders. But no one now remembers how the
script symbols are meant to be read. Steven Fischer recently claimed to
have deciphered Rongorongo, but his critics say "Wrong-o, wrong-o." I
don't know if Fischer is right or wrong, but undeciphered scripts do
seem to invite harebrained analysis. Jacques Guy bluntly calls them
"kook attractors," but even serious scholars aren't immune. Hrozný, who
correctly deciphered Hittite, later went down many wrong paths with
other scripts.

The real kooks are those like Goropius Becanus of the Netherlands, who
in 1580 proved to his satisfaction that Egyptian hieroglyphics
represented Dutch. A Jesuit priest named Heras is one of scores who have
claimed to decipher Indus script. Here's one of his translations: "There
is no feast in the place outside the country of the Minas of the three
fishes of the despised country of the woodpeckers." Whatever you say, padre.

You mention the 2,500 examples of the Indus script. The number of
available texts now exceeds 4,000, but quantity is no indication of ease
of decipherment. Some scripts have been translated with far fewer texts.
Take Palmyrene, the first ancient script ever deciphered. A handful of
inscriptions were found on the walls of the ruins of the city of Palmyra
in Syria. Scholars knew from ancient Greek writers that the language
spoken there was closely related to Syriac, a well known Semitic
language. The script was obviously derived from the known Aramaic
alphabet but many letters weren't immediately identifiable. Among the
ruins were several bilingual inscriptions in Greek and Palmyrene. If you
know the Aramaic alphabet, it's a fairly simple matter to use the
identifiable Aramaic letters and the similarity of proper names in Greek
and Palmyrene to get a good start. Then you can use your knowledge of
Greek and Syriac to fill in the blanks. Your Syriac is a little rusty,
you say? Not to worry--a decent Syriac dictionary will serve just as
well. Soon after the first decent reproductions of Palmyrene
inscriptions were published in Europe in the 1750s, Barthélemy in France
and Swinton in England independently deciphered them, each taking just a
few hours to finish the job. It was perhaps a bit more challenging than
the cryptogram puzzles you can find in your Sunday paper, but not by
much. Most decipherments, needless to say, are a good deal tougher to
crack than that.

Returning to the matter at hand, is the lack of a bitext for the Indus
script an insurmountable obstacle? Not necessarily. Some scripts have
been deciphered without them, although not without a good deal of
cleverness. Ugaritic writings, like Palmyrene,  were found in Syria (in
1929), suggesting that they too might be a Semitic language. About two
dozen symbols were used, suggesting an alphabetic script. Several of the
words were only a single letter long, suggesting Ugaritic used a
consonantal alphabet written without vowels (as was the case with other
early Semitic alphabets such as Hebrew). Applying letter frequency
analysis to the problem, Hans Bauer tentatively assigned the values L
and M to two Ugaritic letters. In Semitic languages, L is common as a
single-letter word, but not so common in suffixes and prefixes; M is the
only letter that is really common in Semitic suffixes, prefixes, and as
single-letter words.

On the assumption that related languages use similar words for common
concepts (much as European languages have father/vater/pater), Bauer
then used the M and L assignments to search the texts for the expected
Semitic word for "king" (M-L-K or similar) and "kings" (M-L-K-K or
similar). Proceeding along these lines, he found the words for "son" and
the name of the god Ba`al, and so eventually determined the values of
several other letters. His real insight was to guess that the word for
axe might occur in the text inscribed on several axes. He turned out to
be right about that, but chose the wrong phonetic values (he guessed
G-R-Z-N as in Hebrew; the actual Ugaritic form was the related but not
identical H-R-S-N). Édouard Dhorme later corrected the reading and
finished the decipherment. One of the axe inscriptions said, in a
language related to biblical Hebrew, "Unto the high priest doth this axe
belong, wherefore shouldst thou keep thy hands off it!" Or something
like that. It strikes me that Bauer's guess was pretty lucky--I have two
axes in my garage but have yet to inscribe either with the word "axe."
But hey, when the high priest tells me, "Inscribe the word 'axe' on this
axe, chop-chop," I'm not about to wait around for him to axe me politely.

Ugaritic isn't the only language to have been deciphered without a
bilingual. Georg Friedrich Grotefend made considerable progress in
deciphering Persian cuneiform by looking for and finding proper names of
Persian emperors known from ancient Greek and Hebrew sources. (Henry
Rawlinson finished the decipherment in the 1830s.) The point is that
bilinguals aren't necessary to decipher an unknown script. Still, in the
case of Ugaritic and Persian, scholars had a pretty good handle on the
language the script represented before they started work. In the case of
Etruscan, where the language is largely unknown, complete decipherment
thus far has eluded us.

What do we know about the language the Indus script wrote? We can say
little for certain, but the best guess is that it's a language of the
Dravidian family, an idea that has been around since at least the 1920s.
Today most Dravidian speakers live in Sri Lanka and southern India, 800
miles or more from the Indus valley where the bulk of the Indus
inscriptions have been found. But about a hundred thousand speakers of
one Dravidian language, Brahui, live in western Pakistan and neighboring
parts of Iran and Afghanistan, not too far west of the Indus. Contrary
to earlier speculation about recent migrations, linguistic and genetic
analyses show that they have been separated from other Dravidian
speakers for at least several thousand years. Further evidence that
Dravidian or related languages were once spoken in the general area
comes from Linear Elamite inscriptions, found in the ruins of the
ancient city of Susa in southwestern Iran. The script has been
deciphered from a phonetic standpoint because of its similarity to
Mesopotamian cuneiform, but as with Etruscan, the language remains
largely unknown. A significant percentage of words in Linear Elamite
appear to be of Dravidian origin, which could mean it is descended from
a hypothetical Elamo-Dravidian ancestor language, or just that it
borrowed a lot of words from a Dravidian language spoken nearby. In
either case, the Elamite connection makes it seem more likely that a
Dravidian or related language was spoken in the Indus valley when the
inscriptions were made.

Many Indian nationalists, and some serious scholars, believe the Indus
script writes a language of the Indo-Iranian (Aryan) branch of the
Indo-European family, which includes Farsi (modern Persian), Sanskrit
and Hindi. All things considered, this seems unlikely. The inscriptions
go back to about 3200 B.C., which according to mainstream archaeological
thinking is before any Indo-Europeans had come that far southeast.
Another problem is that Indo-European peoples kept domesticated horses
and used chariots and had other cultural traits not shared with the
ancient Indus civilization. Indeed, according to the mainstream
thinking, the arrival of the Indo-Europeans in the Indus Valley around
1800 B.C. is more likely to have been the end of the Harappan culture
than the beginning of it.

If the Indus script turns out to write a language that is neither
Indo-European nor Dravidian (or Elamo-Dravidian), then the chances of
deciphering it are slim. In the words of Alice Kober, who helped
decipher Linear B, "an unknown language written in an unknown script
cannot be deciphered, bilingual or no bilingual." There are really no
other decent candidates among known languages, so we would be left with
an unknown language, and the prospects of complete decipherment would be
as poor as with Etruscan.

But faint hope is better than none. Sumerian is a linguistic isolate,
but the script has been phonetically deciphered, and the language partly
deciphered. Most of the cuneiform scripts of Mesopotamia are direct
descendants of the Sumerian script, though they're used to write
unrelated languages. Babylonian and Akkadian and some other languages
written in these related scripts were amenable to decipherment in part
because they were members of the well understood Semitic family. The
similarity of the scripts, the many Sumerian loanwords in these Semitic
languages, and the unusually large number of bilingual texts have
allowed scholars to reconstruct the Sumerian language with considerable
success despite its being unrelated to any known language. No such
combination of circumstances exists for the Indus script, and no
discoveries along these lines are seriously expected.

What will we get if the Indus script is finally deciphered--great
historical works that reveal the local political situation 5,000 years
ago? Classic works of literature like the Egyptian Book of the Dead or
the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh? Insight into ancient religious
practices of the sort revealed by Ugaritic? No to all the above. The sad
truth is that the longest known Indus inscription is only 17 symbols
long. The bulk of the 4,000 or so Indus inscriptions are believed to be
simple identifying marks. Most of the inscriptions are on seals or seal
impressions, similar to signet rings or rubber stamps. So even if we
decipher the script and the language, chances are we'll discover they
say nothing more fascinating than "government property" or "John Smith"
or "tax paid." As with the revelation that Linear B wrote an archaic
form of Greek, if the Indus script is deciphered, the most interesting
fact learned will be what language the ancient script wrote--that is, if
it writes a language at all.

If it writes a language? They wouldn't call it the "Indus script" if it
weren't a script, would they? Don't be so sure. When the first
inscriptions were discovered in the 1870s in and around the Indus valley
of Pakistan, and when the early cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were
excavated in the 1920s, archaeologists assumed that civilization and
writing always went together--a complex urban culture couldn't possibly
develop without writing. The Indus sites were urban; ergo, the
inscriptions were writing.

Today we recognize that civilization and writing don't always go
together. The Inca empire, for example, was urban but lacked true
writing. Historian Steve Farmer now questions the assumption that the
Indus script is true writing. In a recent paper, he and two linguists
compare the Indus script with medieval European heraldry. Like heraldry,
they say, the Indus script may consist of discrete conventional elements
that serve as identification marks but don't encode a spoken language.

This controversial idea has some points in its favor. Considering the
corpus of texts as a whole, there's a considerable amount of repetition
among symbols, as would be expected if they wrote a spoken language. But
there's less repetition than expected within the texts, even considering
their brevity. Further, several systems of pictograms from around the
world--for example, the Vinca signs of southeastern Europe, written
about 4000 B.C.--resemble the Indus script in their use of conventional
symbols, but nobody believes they code a written language.

Traditionalists have some points in their favor too. The Indus script
was linear, that is, usually written with symbols following one another
in a line, rather than being placed randomly or in some other geometric
pattern. Linearity is found in most writing, though not exclusively so.
More to the point, the characters often crowd at the end of a line, as
if the writer wanted to avoid breaking up a word. This is a distinctive
feature of true writing. The comparison with heraldry may not hold water
either. Hittite hieroglyphics were initially considered heraldry by
serious linguists but were eventually found to be true writing and
deciphered. Much the same has been said about many other undeciphered
scripts likewise shown to be true writing.

Still, Farmer feels so strongly that the Indus script is not a real
script that he has offered a $10,000 reward for proof that it is true
writing. He will accept as proof an authenticated inscription more than
50 symbols long. Farmer thinks the extant texts are all so short because
they don't write a language. The pro-language side thinks the longer
texts once produced in Harappa and other cities have been lost because
they were written on perishable surfaces. Certainly a long text would be
a great gift to modern science. I just wish they wouldn't use the lame
excuse that they couldn't give it to us because they ran out of Harappan
paper.

Further reading

Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World's Undeciphered Scripts by Andrew
Robinson, 2002

The Story of Decipherment: From Egyptian Hieroglyphs to Maya Script by
Maurice Pope, revised edition, 1999

"The Collapse of the Indus-Script Thesis: The Myth of a Literate
Harappan Civilization" by Steve Farmer, Richard Sproat, and Michael
Witzel in Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies, Dec.13, 2004. This and
related items can be accessed from Steve Farmer's download page at
www.safarmer.com/downloads/.

--SDSTAFF bibliophage
Straight Dope Science Advisory Board

[Comment on this answer.]

Staff Reports are researched and written by members of the Straight Dope
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To keep the message short, I'm refraining from making a number of comments
that come to mind. The text is the Draft Treaty establishing a
Constitution for Europe, which is provided (as PDF documents) in all
languages of interest. Considering its importance, each document is likely
to be carefully written, and one would assume, an example of the best form
of each respective language. The collection, in a geographically-limited
sense, is a contemporary "Rosetta Stone". (Worldwide, I assume the U.N.'s
Declaration on Human Rights is another such collection.)

The server doesn't restrict the number of simultaneous connections; I
think I had eight at most. File sizes are modest, ranging from about 670kB
(ET) to 1.44 MB (EL) (full floppy... :) ). Total is 18 MiB. Interesting to
see which languages were at the extremes; I would not have expected either
of those.

Languages are  BG  CS  DA  DE  EL  EN  ES  ET
    FI  FR  GA  IT  LT  LV  MT  NL  PT  RO  SK  SL  SV
   (codes taken from the filenames).

Almost forgot the URL!
<http://european-convention.eu.int/DraftTreaty.asp?lang=EN>

Modify the language code on the end as you wish. You do need to specify
one of the available languages. (Filenames for the various languages don't
all have the same format, btw.)

Regards,
--
Nicholas Bodley  /*|*\ Waltham, Mass. (Not "MA")
The curious hermit -- autodidact and polymath
If you're determined to be afraid, choose wisely
what to be afraid of.

i18n@... wrote:
Hi all - just came across this on the Straight Dope web site at
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mindusscript.html

Comments, currently not really on point for qalam, are available at
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=315899

Best,

Barry
-------------------------------------------------

A Staff Report by the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board
How come we can't decipher the Indus script?

10-May-2005

Dear Straight Dope:

I just got a book on ancient civilizations. In the chapter dealing with
written languages, they list Egyptian hieroglyphics, Mesopotamian
pictographs, and Indus script as the three oldest known written
languages. The book goes on to say Indus script has never been
deciphered even though over 2,500 examples of it exist. Maybe I've
watched too many sci-fi movies where a master linguist deciphers alien
languages, but I really thought we had terrestrial languages mastered.
What's the deal with Indus script? Is the art of linguistics still held
hostage by our inability to decipher ancient languages without a "key" à
la the Rosetta Stone? --Troy Dayton, Fargo, ND

SDSTAFF bibliophage replies:

Too much science fiction? No such thing. Star Trek, for example, teaches
us that a good communications officer can send a message that transcends
mere language, especially if she has legs down to here and a hemline up
to there. Mmmmm. Mm-HMMMmmmmm . . . er, sorry. Was I saying something?

Yes, I was. The Indus script, which was written in and around Pakistan
over a period of several centuries centered around 2500 B.C., is the
most famous undeciphered script, but there are many others. Other
mystery writing systems include Linear A (Greece, 1800 B.C.), Zapotec
(Mexico, 500 B.C.), Meroitic (Sudan, 300 B.C.), Isthmian (Central
America, A.D. 200), Rongorongo (Easter Island, A.D. 1800) and Joycean
(Ireland, A.D. 1900). Okay, maybe not that last one.

Why haven't they been deciphered? It's instructive to look at some
deciphered scripts to see what makes the enigmatic writing of the Indus
valley different. Script decipherment is not as easy as it's made out to
be in science fiction--and sometimes not as easy as it's made out to be
in history books. Chances are the impression you took away from school
was that the Rosetta stone made it child's play to decipher Egyptian
hieroglyphics. Not so. How many schools teach that some of the best
minds in the world pored over the Rosetta stone for a quarter century
before it finally revealed its secrets?

One of the biggest obstacles was that the ancient Egyptians used a
writing system unlike anything known when the Rosetta stone was
discovered in 1799. Scholars knew about logographic systems like
Chinese, where there are thousands of symbols, each normally
representing a whole word or idea. They knew about alphabetic systems
like Hebrew and English, where there are typically 20 to 30 symbols,
each normally representing one consonant or vowel. Some scholars may
have known about syllabaries, with several dozen symbols each
representing one syllable, as in Japanese hiragana and katakana. But
Egyptian hieroglyphics had too many distinct symbols to be an alphabet
or syllabary, and too few to be logographic.

The decipherment published by Champollion in 1823 (building on work by
many others, including Thomas Young) showed that Egyptian hieroglyphics
were (neglecting some complications) a logo-phonetic system. In such a
writing system, any given symbol can represent either an entire idea or
word, or the sound (or initial sound) of that word. Some simple ideas
can be expressed efficiently with a drawing of the object or an object
it's associated with. But to express an abstract idea that can't be
readily drawn, you can use a string of sounds. Suppose you want to
express the English word "charitable" without an alphabet. You could
draw a picture of a chair and a table (since "chair table" sounds sort
of like "charitable"). This is the rebus principle. Today we may
consider rebus puzzles to be nothing but a silly game, but to the
ancients, they were a natural way to write a language. Other early
scripts, like Mayan hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiform, are built on
the same principle.

The rebus approach may seem an unwieldy way to write a language, but
it's a step up from non-linguistic pictograms. A picture of a chair and
a table can only convey "chair and table," or at best an idea associated
with a chair and table, such as the act of sitting down at a table. An
abstract concept such as "charitable" is difficult to get across using
pictograms. Writing systems built on the rebus system are a way of
filling the void, but have the drawback (for us latter-day translators)
that, unlike pictograms, they'll only work in one language. For a
speaker of Latin, for example, pictograms of a chair (in Latin, sella)
and a picture of a table (mensa) would never suggest the word for
charitable (benignus).

I go into such detail about logo-phonetic systems because the Indus
script appears to have about the right number of distinct symbols (250
to 400, depending on who's counting) to use this system. Knowing that,
shouldn't it be easier to decipher the Indus script? Not really--the
decipherers of Egyptian hieroglyphics had the help of the Rosetta stone,
a bilingual or bitext (parallel texts of the same message in the unknown
script and a known script). No bitext for the Indus script has yet been
found.

A bitext is no guarantee that decipherment will be easy. Take the case
of Etruscan writing, found in Italy. At a superficial level the script
is easily deciphered, since the letters are close in form to archaic
Greek and Latin alphabets. But the language remains largely
uninterpreted. What's the difference? Given a piece of Etruscan writing,
we have no difficulty pronouncing the words, but no idea what most of
the words mean (think of a trained politician reading off a
TelePrompTer). The trouble is that Etruscan is apparently unrelated to
any language understood today. Champollion, the decipherer of Egyptian
hieroglyphics, had the advantage of knowing Coptic, which he correctly
suspected was the descendant of the ancient Egyptian language. Etruscan
has left no descendants.

The dozens of Etruscan bitexts (with Latin, Greek, or Phoenician) aren't
very helpful. All they really tell you is that a given block of
mysterious text means such-and-such. There's no sure way to tell which
Etruscan word corresponds to which word in the parallel text, since the
order of ideas and number of words vary widely among the different
languages. All is not lost, however. If, for example, a Latin word
occurs several times in a text and a mystery word occurs the same number
of times in the corresponding Etruscan text, you may be justified in
supposing that they mean the same thing. But beware--often the two
messages in a bilingual text are just paraphrases of each other, not
word-for-word translations. Still, using methods like this, together
with glosses (explicit translations of individual words in the
documents), scholars have been able to determine--or at least make a
reasonable guess at--the meanings of a couple hundred Etruscan words.

If we understand the language or a close relative or descendant of the
language, it ought to be pretty easy to decipher the script, right? Not
so fast. The Rongorongo script used on Easter Island after European
contact almost certainly represents Rapa Nui, the well known Polynesian
language of the Easter Islanders. But no one now remembers how the
script symbols are meant to be read. Steven Fischer recently claimed to
have deciphered Rongorongo, but his critics say "Wrong-o, wrong-o." I
don't know if Fischer is right or wrong, but undeciphered scripts do
seem to invite harebrained analysis. Jacques Guy bluntly calls them
"kook attractors," but even serious scholars aren't immune. Hrozný, who
correctly deciphered Hittite, later went down many wrong paths with
other scripts.

The real kooks are those like Goropius Becanus of the Netherlands, who
in 1580 proved to his satisfaction that Egyptian hieroglyphics
represented Dutch. A Jesuit priest named Heras is one of scores who have
claimed to decipher Indus script. Here's one of his translations: "There
is no feast in the place outside the country of the Minas of the three
fishes of the despised country of the woodpeckers." Whatever you say, padre.

You mention the 2,500 examples of the Indus script. The number of
available texts now exceeds 4,000, but quantity is no indication of ease
of decipherment. Some scripts have been translated with far fewer texts.
Take Palmyrene, the first ancient script ever deciphered. A handful of
inscriptions were found on the walls of the ruins of the city of Palmyra
in Syria. Scholars knew from ancient Greek writers that the language
spoken there was closely related to Syriac, a well known Semitic
language. The script was obviously derived from the known Aramaic
alphabet but many letters weren't immediately identifiable. Among the
ruins were several bilingual inscriptions in Greek and Palmyrene. If you
know the Aramaic alphabet, it's a fairly simple matter to use the
identifiable Aramaic letters and the similarity of proper names in Greek
and Palmyrene to get a good start. Then you can use your knowledge of
Greek and Syriac to fill in the blanks. Your Syriac is a little rusty,
you say? Not to worry--a decent Syriac dictionary will serve just as
well. Soon after the first decent reproductions of Palmyrene
inscriptions were published in Europe in the 1750s, Barthélemy in France
and Swinton in England independently deciphered them, each taking just a
few hours to finish the job. It was perhaps a bit more challenging than
the cryptogram puzzles you can find in your Sunday paper, but not by
much. Most decipherments, needless to say, are a good deal tougher to
crack than that.

Returning to the matter at hand, is the lack of a bitext for the Indus
script an insurmountable obstacle? Not necessarily. Some scripts have
been deciphered without them, although not without a good deal of
cleverness. Ugaritic writings, like Palmyrene,  were found in Syria (in
1929), suggesting that they too might be a Semitic language. About two
dozen symbols were used, suggesting an alphabetic script. Several of the
words were only a single letter long, suggesting Ugaritic used a
consonantal alphabet written without vowels (as was the case with other
early Semitic alphabets such as Hebrew). Applying letter frequency
analysis to the problem, Hans Bauer tentatively assigned the values L
and M to two Ugaritic letters. In Semitic languages, L is common as a
single-letter word, but not so common in suffixes and prefixes; M is the
only letter that is really common in Semitic suffixes, prefixes, and as
single-letter words.

On the assumption that related languages use similar words for common
concepts (much as European languages have father/vater/pater), Bauer
then used the M and L assignments to search the texts for the expected
Semitic word for "king" (M-L-K or similar) and "kings" (M-L-K-K or
similar). Proceeding along these lines, he found the words for "son" and
the name of the god Ba`al, and so eventually determined the values of
several other letters. His real insight was to guess that the word for
axe might occur in the text inscribed on several axes. He turned out to
be right about that, but chose the wrong phonetic values (he guessed
G-R-Z-N as in Hebrew; the actual Ugaritic form was the related but not
identical H-R-S-N). Édouard Dhorme later corrected the reading and
finished the decipherment. One of the axe inscriptions said, in a
language related to biblical Hebrew, "Unto the high priest doth this axe
belong, wherefore shouldst thou keep thy hands off it!" Or something
like that. It strikes me that Bauer's guess was pretty lucky--I have two
axes in my garage but have yet to inscribe either with the word "axe."
But hey, when the high priest tells me, "Inscribe the word 'axe' on this
axe, chop-chop," I'm not about to wait around for him to axe me politely.

Ugaritic isn't the only language to have been deciphered without a
bilingual. Georg Friedrich Grotefend made considerable progress in
deciphering Persian cuneiform by looking for and finding proper names of
Persian emperors known from ancient Greek and Hebrew sources. (Henry
Rawlinson finished the decipherment in the 1830s.) The point is that
bilinguals aren't necessary to decipher an unknown script. Still, in the
case of Ugaritic and Persian, scholars had a pretty good handle on the
language the script represented before they started work. In the case of
Etruscan, where the language is largely unknown, complete decipherment
thus far has eluded us.

What do we know about the language the Indus script wrote? We can say
little for certain, but the best guess is that it's a language of the
Dravidian family, an idea that has been around since at least the 1920s.
Today most Dravidian speakers live in Sri Lanka and southern India, 800
miles or more from the Indus valley where the bulk of the Indus
inscriptions have been found. But about a hundred thousand speakers of
one Dravidian language, Brahui, live in western Pakistan and neighboring
parts of Iran and Afghanistan, not too far west of the Indus. Contrary
to earlier speculation about recent migrations, linguistic and genetic
analyses show that they have been separated from other Dravidian
speakers for at least several thousand years. Further evidence that
Dravidian or related languages were once spoken in the general area
comes from Linear Elamite inscriptions, found in the ruins of the
ancient city of Susa in southwestern Iran. The script has been
deciphered from a phonetic standpoint because of its similarity to
Mesopotamian cuneiform, but as with Etruscan, the language remains
largely unknown. A significant percentage of words in Linear Elamite
appear to be of Dravidian origin, which could mean it is descended from
a hypothetical Elamo-Dravidian ancestor language, or just that it
borrowed a lot of words from a Dravidian language spoken nearby. In
either case, the Elamite connection makes it seem more likely that a
Dravidian or related language was spoken in the Indus valley when the
inscriptions were made.

Many Indian nationalists, and some serious scholars, believe the Indus
script writes a language of the Indo-Iranian (Aryan) branch of the
Indo-European family, which includes Farsi (modern Persian), Sanskrit
and Hindi. All things considered, this seems unlikely. The inscriptions
go back to about 3200 B.C., which according to mainstream archaeological
thinking is before any Indo-Europeans had come that far southeast.
Another problem is that Indo-European peoples kept domesticated horses
and used chariots and had other cultural traits not shared with the
ancient Indus civilization. Indeed, according to the mainstream
thinking, the arrival of the Indo-Europeans in the Indus Valley around
1800 B.C. is more likely to have been the end of the Harappan culture
than the beginning of it.

If the Indus script turns out to write a language that is neither
Indo-European nor Dravidian (or Elamo-Dravidian), then the chances of
deciphering it are slim. In the words of Alice Kober, who helped
decipher Linear B, "an unknown language written in an unknown script
cannot be deciphered, bilingual or no bilingual." There are really no
other decent candidates among known languages, so we would be left with
an unknown language, and the prospects of complete decipherment would be
as poor as with Etruscan.

But faint hope is better than none. Sumerian is a linguistic isolate,
but the script has been phonetically deciphered, and the language partly
deciphered. Most of the cuneiform scripts of Mesopotamia are direct
descendants of the Sumerian script, though they're used to write
unrelated languages. Babylonian and Akkadian and some other languages
written in these related scripts were amenable to decipherment in part
because they were members of the well understood Semitic family. The
similarity of the scripts, the many Sumerian loanwords in these Semitic
languages, and the unusually large number of bilingual texts have
allowed scholars to reconstruct the Sumerian language with considerable
success despite its being unrelated to any known language. No such
combination of circumstances exists for the Indus script, and no
discoveries along these lines are seriously expected.

What will we get if the Indus script is finally deciphered--great
historical works that reveal the local political situation 5,000 years
ago? Classic works of literature like the Egyptian Book of the Dead or
the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh? Insight into ancient religious
practices of the sort revealed by Ugaritic? No to all the above. The sad
truth is that the longest known Indus inscription is only 17 symbols
long. The bulk of the 4,000 or so Indus inscriptions are believed to be
simple identifying marks. Most of the inscriptions are on seals or seal
impressions, similar to signet rings or rubber stamps. So even if we
decipher the script and the language, chances are we'll discover they
say nothing more fascinating than "government property" or "John Smith"
or "tax paid." As with the revelation that Linear B wrote an archaic
form of Greek, if the Indus script is deciphered, the most interesting
fact learned will be what language the ancient script wrote--that is, if
it writes a language at all.

If it writes a language? They wouldn't call it the "Indus script" if it
weren't a script, would they? Don't be so sure. When the first
inscriptions were discovered in the 1870s in and around the Indus valley
of Pakistan, and when the early cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were
excavated in the 1920s, archaeologists assumed that civilization and
writing always went together--a complex urban culture couldn't possibly
develop without writing. The Indus sites were urban; ergo, the
inscriptions were writing.

Today we recognize that civilization and writing don't always go
together. The Inca empire, for example, was urban but lacked true
writing. Historian Steve Farmer now questions the assumption that the
Indus script is true writing. In a recent paper, he and two linguists
compare the Indus script with medieval European heraldry. Like heraldry,
they say, the Indus script may consist of discrete conventional elements
that serve as identification marks but don't encode a spoken language.

This controversial idea has some points in its favor. Considering the
corpus of texts as a whole, there's a considerable amount of repetition
among symbols, as would be expected if they wrote a spoken language. But
there's less repetition than expected within the texts, even considering
their brevity. Further, several systems of pictograms from around the
world--for example, the Vinca signs of southeastern Europe, written
about 4000 B.C.--resemble the Indus script in their use of conventional
symbols, but nobody believes they code a written language.

Traditionalists have some points in their favor too. The Indus script
was linear, that is, usually written with symbols following one another
in a line, rather than being placed randomly or in some other geometric
pattern. Linearity is found in most writing, though not exclusively so.
More to the point, the characters often crowd at the end of a line, as
if the writer wanted to avoid breaking up a word. This is a distinctive
feature of true writing. The comparison with heraldry may not hold water
either. Hittite hieroglyphics were initially considered heraldry by
serious linguists but were eventually found to be true writing and
deciphered. Much the same has been said about many other undeciphered
scripts likewise shown to be true writing.

Still, Farmer feels so strongly that the Indus script is not a real
script that he has offered a $10,000 reward for proof that it is true
writing. He will accept as proof an authenticated inscription more than
50 symbols long. Farmer thinks the extant texts are all so short because
they don't write a language. The pro-language side thinks the longer
texts once produced in Harappa and other cities have been lost because
they were written on perishable surfaces. Certainly a long text would be
a great gift to modern science. I just wish they wouldn't use the lame
excuse that they couldn't give it to us because they ran out of Harappan
paper.

Further reading

Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World's Undeciphered Scripts by Andrew
Robinson, 2002

The Story of Decipherment: From Egyptian Hieroglyphs to Maya Script by
Maurice Pope, revised edition, 1999

"The Collapse of the Indus-Script Thesis: The Myth of a Literate
Harappan Civilization" by Steve Farmer, Richard Sproat, and Michael
Witzel in Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies, Dec.13, 2004. This and
related items can be accessed from Steve Farmer's download page at
www.safarmer.com/downloads/.

--SDSTAFF bibliophage
Straight Dope Science Advisory Board

[Comment on this answer.]

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Cecil's staff got it almost entirely right. The one important point
about the Rosetta Stone that they missed is that the Rosetta Stone by
itself was not sufficient for deciphering the hieroglyphs, because (by
accident) only one pharaoh's name (Ptolemy) was preserved -- only when
Champollion got hold of Cleopatra's cartouche (probably provided to him
by Young) was he able to cross-check which symbols went with which
consonant sounds. Thereafter, all he needed to do was apply his
knowledge of Coptic.

(The great surprise was that not only Greek names -- Ptolemy, Cleopatra
-- could be written phonetically, but even Egyptian ones: Rameses was
the first to appear, since he knew the Coptic for 'sun' and had the <m>
from <Ptolemy>.)
--
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@...

FYI. The folowing info is compiled from two recent messages on the Linguist list
(re 6[2] and 7[2]) and info from the journal website:
http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_seriesview.cgi?series=WL%26L . The latter
has access to abstracts of the articles.  DZO


Date: 13-May-2005
From: Paul Peranteau <paul@...>
Subject: Written Language and Literacy Vol. 6, No. 2 (2003)


Publisher: John Benjamins
http://www.benjamins.com/

Journal Title: Written Language and Literacy
Volume Number: 6
Issue Number: 2
Issue Date: 2003


Main Text:

Table of contents

Articles

Two lectures on writing
Charles F. Hockett 131–175

Orthographic design in the Solomon Islands: The social, historical, and
linguistic situation of Touo (Baniata)
Angela Terrill and Michael Dunn 177–192

The origin of Mayan syllabograms and orthographic conventions
David F. Mora-Marín 193–238

Book Reviews

Review of "Du signe à l'écriture; Comment est née l'écriture"
Reviewed by Stéphane Grivelet 239–242

Review of "Multilingual literacies: Reading and writing different worlds" by
Marilyn Martin-Jones & Kathryn Jones (eds)
Reviewed by Courtney B. Cazden 242–246

Review of "Chinese" by Oliver Moore
Reviewed by Newell Ann Van Auken 246–250

Review of "Reading the Maya glyphs" by Michael D. Coe & Mark Van Stone
Reviewed by Gabrielle Vail 250–254

Editorial Note 255

Publications Received 257–259

Index to Volume 6 261–262


Linguistic Field(s): Ling & Literature
                             Writing Systems
                             Applied Linguistics
                             Typology

Subject Language(s): Bali (BCN)
                             Touo (BNT)
                             Chinese, Mandarin (CHN)
                             Maya, Yucatán (YUA)

========================================

Process and Acquisition of Written Language
Special issue of Written Language & Literacy 7:1 (2004)

Edited by Robert Schreuder and Ludo Verhoeven

Written Language & Literacy 7:1

2004. iv, 132 pp.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Table of contents

Editorial preface  1
Articles
Introduction: The cross-linguistic study of reading
Robert Schreuder and Ludo Verhoeven 3–7

Variability and invariance in learning alphabetic orthographies: From linguistic
description to psycholinguistic processing
Liliane Sprenger-Charolles and Danielle Béchennec 9–33

The orthographic contrast between two languages: Mayan and Spanish
Alejandra Pellicer 35–48

Orthographic constraints and frequency effects in complex word identification
Ludo Verhoeven, Harald Baayen and Robert Schreuder 49–59

Still errors after all those years ...: Limited attentional resources and
homophone frequency account for spelling errors on silent verb suffixes in
Dutch
Dominiek Sandra, Steven Frisson and Frans Daems 61–77

The acquisition of spoken forms and written words: An empirical study of opacity
in the speech/reading/writing interface in Danish
Dorthe Bleses and Pia Thomsen 79–99

The relationship between phonological awareness and writing
Sofía A. Vernon, Gabriela Calderón and Luis Castro 101–114

Implications of alphabetic instruction in the conscious and unconscious
manipulations of phonological representations in Portuguese-Japanese bilinguals

Ana Luiza G. P. Navas

========================================

Date: 13-May-2005
From: Paul Peranteau <paul@...>
Subject: Written Language and Literacy Vol. 7, No. 2 (2004)


Publisher: John Benjamins
http://www.benjamins.com/

Journal Title: Written Language and Literacy
Volume Number: 7
Issue Number: 2
Issue Date: 2004


Subtitle: From Letter to Sound


Main Text:

From Letter to Sound
New perspectives on writing systems

Special issue of Written Language & Literacy 7:2 (2004)

Edited by Martin Neef and Beatrice Primus
University of Cologne & University of Brunswick / University of Cologne

Written Language & Literacy 7:2

Table of contents

Introduction: From letter to sound: New perspectives on writing systems
Beatrice Primus and Martin Neef 133–138

In search of the perfect orthography
Richard L. Venezky 139–163

Word-initial entropy in five languages: Letter to sound, and sound to letter
Susanne R. Borgwaldt, Frauke M. Hellwig and Annette M.B. de Groot 165–184

The apostrophe: A neglected and misunderstood reading aid
Daniel Buncic 185–204

The relation of vowel letters to phonological syllables in English and German
Martin Neef 205–234

A featural analysis of the Modern Roman Alphabet
Beatrice Primus 235–274

Do symmetrical letter pairs affect readability? A cross-linguistic examination
of writing systems with specific reference to the runes
Alexandra Wiebelt 275–303

How to optimize orthography
Richard Wiese 305–331

Contents of Volume 7 333–334


Linguistic Field(s): Ling & Literature
                             Phonology
                             Writing Systems
                             Applied Linguistics
                             Typology

Subject Language(s): English (ENG)
                             German, Standard (GER)

Donald Z. Osborn wrote:
>
> FYI. The folowing info is compiled from two recent messages on the Linguist
list
> (re 6[2] and 7[2]) and info from the journal website:
> http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_seriesview.cgi?series=WL%26L . The latter
> has access to abstracts of the articles.  DZO
>
> Date: 13-May-2005
> From: Paul Peranteau <paul@...>
> Subject: Written Language and Literacy Vol. 6, No. 2 (2003)
>
> Publisher: John Benjamins
> http://www.benjamins.com/
>
> Journal Title: Written Language and Literacy
> Volume Number: 6
> Issue Number: 2
> Issue Date: 2003
>
> Main Text:
>
> Table of contents
>
> Articles
>
> Two lectures on writing
> Charles F. Hockett 131–175

prepared for publication by PTD
--
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@...

Send in your submissions now! Due date is May 20!

                             Call for Papers!

     Twenty-eighth Internationalization and Unicode Conference (IUC28)

       Unicode 4.1 - Multilingual Challenges and Solutions for 2006

                             See Call for Papers at:
                    http://www.global-conference.com/iuc28

                              September 7-9, 2005
                             Orlando, Florida, USA

                          Send in your submission now!

                      Submissions due: May 20, 2005
                    Notification date: June 10, 2005
                           Papers due: July 15, 2005

          Unicode 4.1 - Multilingual Challenges and Solutions for 2006

The Internationalization and Unicode Conference (IUC) is the premier
technical conference for software and multilingual computing, and it is
your source for the latest information on advances in the globalization
of software and the Internet. The 28th IUC features a number of
presentation formats including tutorials, workshops, lectures, and
panel discussions to support different learning styles

The release this year of version 4.1 brings us closer to 100,000
characters in the Unicode Character Standard.  Leaders in Software
and Web Internationalization will share their expertise and
best practices in working with the expanding character set and
identify new challenges and opportunities in multilingual computing.

You are invited to contribute to the discussion.  All topics related to
Unicode, software and Web internationalization, and specific regional
challenges are relevant, but emphasis will be given to topics that fit
this theme with a focus on actual practice.  The conference will also
explore how to make internationalization and localization more efficient
even when extending support to languages with complex processing and
rendering behavior.  There will be a track devoted to localization
standards, tools, methodologies and techniques.

The conference web site has more details and numerous example topics:
http://www.global-conference.com/iuc28


ATTENTION WEBSITE and SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS!

Share your ideas for best practices for designing applications that can
accommodate any language.  If you are using Unicode in software or on
the Web, bring your experience, knowledge and any remaining questions
to light!  We invite you to submit papers describing challenges you
faced, lessons learned, and ideas for future implementation.  Our
audience is very interested in how Unicode and internationalization
are being applied in the real world.  Come and share your ideas with
the peers and industry experts in attendance.

INVITATION TO SUBMIT PAPERS

This is the premier technical conference for software and Web
internationalization and your source for the latest information on
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globalization of software and the Internet.  The Internationalization &
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different
learning styles. The conference also provides a forum for identifying
and
discussing new issues in internationalization.

Attendees benefit from the wide range of basic to advanced topics
and the opportunities for dialog and idea exchange with experts
and peers. We invite you to submit papers on the conference themes or
topics that relate to Unicode or any aspect of software and Web
Internationalization.

You can view the programs of previous conferences at:
http://www.unicode.org/unicode/conference/about-conf.html


COLLABORATION WITH TILP

The Institute of Localisation Professionals (TILP) will chair a
track during the conference, devoted to localization standards,
tools, methodologies and techniques. Improving efficiencies in
localization is key to enabling cost-effective, quick-to-market
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Registration for the conference will grant access to the TILP
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management and professionals. We invite papers that are appropriate
for this expanded audience.

CONFERENCE ATTENDEES

Conference attendees are generally involved in either the
development and deployment of Unicode software, or the
globalization of software and the Internet.  They include
managers, software engineers, testers, systems analysts, program
managers, font designers, graphic designers, content developers,
web designers, web administrators, site coordinators, technical
writers, and product marketing personnel.

EXHIBIT OPPORTUNITIES

The Conference SHOWCASE area is for corporations and individuals
who wish to display and promote their products, technology and/or
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Exhibit space is limited.  For further information or to reserve a
place, please contact Global Meeting Services at
info@....

THE UNICODE CONSORTIUM

The Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organization dedicated to
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Standard, a worldwide character encoding.  The Unicode Standard
encodes the characters of the world's principal scripts and
languages, and is code-for-code identical to the international
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All Rights Reserved.

These are for teaching handwriting and hand lettering ("manuscript") to
youngsters.  I found them rather interesting; most, or all, have joining
software included. There's one Russian font. A few letters in a few styles
are really ugly, to my eyes, but in general, they seem to be a good lot.
One has a reverse-oblique variant, for left-handers.

<http://www.educationalfontware.com/>

Regards,

--
Nicholas Bodley  /*|*\ Waltham, Mass. (Not "MA")
who never made peace with a capital Q
shaped like a numeral 2.

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Nicholas Bodley" <nbodley@s...> wrote:
>
> These are for teaching handwriting and hand lettering
("manuscript") to
> youngsters.

Have a look at this Hindi Script Tutor.

http://www.avashy.com/hindiscripttutor.htm

I have found similar programs for Arabic, Chinese, and Tamil but
never for English. Has anyone ever seen anything like this for the
Roman alphabet? Animated alphabets are invariably disappointing.

I am looking for a simple representation of the letters that animates
the order and direction of printing the letter for the print or
manuscript form, not the cursive form.

Suzanne

Thank you Madhukar, for sharing this. Although you are right that the rules of
transcription of languages and indeed writing systems my have a bearing on
achieving literacy, and perhaps this topic should be considered more closely in
language planning, this may be more detail than we need here.

On the issue of the Latin-alphabet alternative transcription for Indian
languages - I believe you gave the name of "lipi" earlier - I will cc this to
the Qalam list, where perhaps some people may have comment.

On the topic of spelling reforms for English, this is arguably long overdue
given the challenges current irregular spellings pose to learners of all ages,
but also difficult to enact. The recent case of German spelling reform (see
http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-1737.html or
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MINEL/message/164 ) is an interesting case in
point.

Thanks again and all the best.

Don Osborn


Quoting "Madhukar N. Gogate" <mngogate@...>:

> ---------------------------------------------------------
> English and Marathi (regarding few recent queries to me)
> Written 1 June 2005. Circulate. --  mngogate@...
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Refer www.mngogate.com Indexpage date 1 May 2005
> Inner pages (22 Dec 2004) were revised - time to time -
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> # 1 #       Use symbols available on usual English-serving
> machines. They may vary languagewise (indexpage note)
> E02 para 17 (English) d (dog) v (victory) (i-kin ee-keen)
> E03 M12 (Marathi) d (th-they) v (w-wind) (hindi hindee
> may be equated). Respelling of Cake- keik (E) kek (M).
> Few Marathi spellings & sounds are in.E05, E03 para 9
>
> # 2 #        Assume here aa (a-art) ae (a-apple) aw (law)
> Pronunication of many English words varies. Respellings
> should match the standards fixed by a global committee.
> Examples -- Mass (maes ? maas ?) Ball (baal ? bawl ?)
>
> # 3 #    (E02) is not Globish of Mr Nerriere (in France).
> Check it on Internet. See E01 E02 footnotes, year1999
>
> # 4 #       Reform some symbols for clarity. Type (r)(n),
> omit brackets. Symbols merge = (m).  l = L ? one ? etc
>
> # 5 #    Refer M12 E02 para16,19, 27. Three dots (...)
> help transition. Use smalls (a-z)only. Single dots will not
> be visible as the sentence-enders in a para. Use capitals
> (A-Z) for starting names (unrespelled,  for sentiments &
> documents) and for starting several words, say (Police),
> until people learn, and digest the respellings, say (polis).
> Reforms will take time. A sentence-starting capital may
> baffle. Is the first word a name? an unrespelled word ?
>
> # 6 #      Marathi script has 3 tiers. Word surya ( = sun)
> has 5 letters in Roman &  2 composite letters in Marathi
> lipi (symbol of s + u-mark below)(symbol of y + r-mark
> above). Use familiar Marathi lipi & its software.  Do use
> Roman if problems (Email etc)arise. Already people use
> linear A-Z Roman based directories. E04 para 12 to 26
>
> # 7 #       Police = polis in Marathi (in current & Roman
> script). Phonetically spelled (sarkaar) appeals to people.
> Transliteration ( sarakaara) matching with current script,
> appeals to Scholars. (sarkaar) (= Govt) read (Sir Car)
>
> # 8 #    Marathi poem - lines. (See 3 dots) kharaa to ek
> jagi dharma... jagaalaa prem arpaave... (- Sane Guruji)
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Institution of Engineers (India) Pune Local Centre Phone
> 25533376 ieiplc@... & Marathi VidnyanParishad
> Pune branch c/oM N Gogate Phone 24337574 will hold
> a public Marathi talk on Tue 21 June 2005 (6-30 pm) at
> Institution of Engineers Hall, Shivajinagar,  Pune 411005.
> Speaker --  Mr P B. Patil (Chemical Engineer) Subject -
> Hazardous Chemicals in Cities (shaharaatil dhokaadaayi
> rasaayane) sarvaani yaave... prasaar karaa... aabhaar...
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Browsing through the Unicode mailing list, I noticed a remark by Peter
Constable that the Thai collation order had been changed by removing
its dependency on how a word was pronounced.  I'd like to hear more
about this change, e.g. its date.

The Thai script is a South Indian script, and like others, e.g. Tamil,
it has many vowel symbols that are written before the consonant.  When
sorting Thai, one implicitly swaps these 'preposed' vowels with the
following consonant, and then, ignoring tone marks and the like, does
a 'lexicographic' sort as for English.  (The consonants come before
the vowels.)

I have seen hints of an algorithically more complex system, whereby
one swaps the preposed vowel to after the whole of the initial
consonant cluster (ignoring any 'anaptyctic' vowel), and compares
syllable by syllable.  I think the comparison of syllables proceeds by
comparing initial consonants, vowel cluster, final consonant, and then
tone mark, but I am not sure of the details.  This can't be done
without a knowledge of the pronunciation of the word, for clusters are
not marked in Thai.  Thus <ae><h><n> can be /hE:n_R/ or /nE:_R/, and
more importrantly, <e><ph><l><a:> can be /phlau_M/ 'axle' or /phe:_M
la:_M/ 'time'.  There are also examples where consonant clusters in
the middle of a word cannot be correclty split between syllables
without knowing the pronunciation of the word.  This more complex
system is, I presume, the one that was replaced.  My description may
be wrong - I have had to reconstruct it from hints and misdescriptions
of the current system.

Richard.

Richard Wordingham wrote:
> Browsing through the Unicode mailing list, I noticed a remark by Peter
> Constable that the Thai collation order had been changed by removing
> its dependency on how a word was pronounced.  I'd like to hear more
> about this change, e.g. its date.
> [...]

Why not asking this on the Unicode List itself?

Seems to me that a very technical IT question about the internals of the
Unicode standard is more appropriate on a forum about Unicode than on a
forum about writing systems in general. As you said, there is nothing
special in the Thai vowel marks themselves: the peculiarity is the way they
have been encoded in the Thai block in Unicode.

--
Marco

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, Marco Cimarosti <marco.cimarosti@e...>
wrote:
> Richard Wordingham wrote:
> > Browsing through the Unicode mailing list, I noticed a remark by Peter
> > Constable that the Thai collation order had been changed by removing
> > its dependency on how a word was pronounced.
>
> Why not asking this on the Unicode List itself?
>
> Seems to me that a very technical IT question about the internals of the
> Unicode standard is more appropriate on a forum about Unicode than on a
> forum about writing systems in general.

The Unicode standard specifies a default collation order not
necessarily suitable for any language - that is as much as the Thai
collation order has to do with the Unicode standard.  I'm not sure
that it is right to regard the alphabetic ordering of words as an IT
question rather than a general question - dictionaries need some form
of alphabetisation, and I presume Pallegoix's dictionary of 1854 would
have needed to alphabetise Thai.

The current alphabtic ordering of Thai words had been established by
the 1960's - I have a textbook written then that explains how to look
Thai words up in a dictionary, and it makes no mention of an earlier
system.  I don't see how an obsolete collation order would have any
relevance to Unicode, whereas it is a part of the history of a writing
system.

> As you said, there is nothing
> special in the Thai vowel marks themselves: the peculiarity is the
way they
> have been encoded in the Thai block in Unicode.

As far as I can deduce what the 'logical order' would be, it would be
neither visual nor phonetic.

Actually, the Thai vowel marks may be peculiar.  When Thai is widely
spaced out horizontally (e.g. written on a sequence of rectangles on a
background of another colour), the preposed and following vowels are
spaced out as though they were actually consonants.  Typographically,
they may as well be base letters.  (Sara am may be an oddity here -
can anyone recall how it is treated in such signs?)  Vertically
written Thai is quite rare, and what I have seen seems to be an
imitation of Japanese or Thai.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to
find any examples of Thai crosswords since I started looking for them.
  I have encountered at least one, but I didn't study it enough at the
time.  I did notice that the 'squares' needed extensions for
superscript marks.

Richard.

Please comment on these generalizations.
Does everyone agree with them or are there some that you take issue with.
They were written by Prof. Chris Upward (Aston U., UK).  Upward was a major
contributor to The Oxford Companion to the English Language (Tom McArthur,
editor).

I have added my initialed comments in this reposting.  Feel free to do the same.

source page:  http://www.spellingsociety.org/news/n/n5pt1.php

Ten Axioms on English Spelling
       Edited and expanded by Chris Upward



1. Alphabets provide the simplest way to write most languages.

SB: syllabaries are strong contenders when there are less than 5 vowels.
        ref:  www.omniglot.com,   www.wikipedia.com   keyword: syllabary

2. The alphabet works by the principle that letters represent speech sounds.

SB: Most writing systems contain more than just sound signs.
        They also include a few meaning signs (semagrams, word-signs, logograms).

3. Literacy is easily acquired if the spelling tells readers the pronunciation,
and the pronunciation tells writers the spelling.

SB: Literacy is more easily acquired under these conditions.  In fact
illiterates can learn highly phonemic writing systems in 3 months or less. 
Laubach (1960) said that 3 months was the average for 95% of the 300 languages
his organization developed literacy materials for.  Swadesh and Pike (1939)
claimed to have taught illiterate Indians in rural Mexico how to read and write
their own language and Spanish in two months.

Kalmar says that a hybrid Tarascan /tə'raas kən / alphabet had been
devised in 1939 by Swadesh, Lathrop, and Pike, as part of the Tarascan Project.
(p.108) "The Tarascan Project became the showpiece of adult biliteracy campaigns
... elevated [by UNESCO, 1948] to paradigmatic status as a model for how to
conduct adult biliteracy campaigns in third world countries .... The Tarascan
Project established once and for all that indios - illiterate indigenous
monolingual adults - could learn to read and write both their own language and
the metropolitan language in less than a month or two - provided both languages
were systematically coded in a single alphabet deliberately designed to be as
hybrid as possible, on the principle of one letter, one hybrid phoneme."

http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j30/revews.php

4. Pronunciation changes through time, undermining the match between spelling
and sound.

SB: See Webster quote

5. Spelling systems need modernizing periodically to restore the sound-spelling
match.

SB: One of the arguments that Samuel Johnson gave for not matching spelling to
speech was that speech changed to quickly.  Had Johnson provided a dictionary
pronunciation key it would be easy to see how much English has changed since
1755.

6. By not systematically modernizing over nearly 1,000 years, English spelling
has lost touch with the alphabetic principle of spelling matching sound.

SB: Written English emerged from Middle Ages as a combined adaption of two vry
distinc spelling systems: those of OE and Norman French.  Added to these
dispareate elements were imports from other languages: Scandanavian, then Latin,
Renaissance Greek, followed by elements from other languages around the world. 
This mix made the phonographic basis of writing in English (the link between its
sounds and its written symbols) less immediately apparent and militated against
the possibility of assimilating all of the ingredients into a consistent whole. 
The resulting diversity were increased by the effects of changes in
pronunciation, esp. the Great Vowel Shift in the 15c, in response to which there
were few changes in spelling.

7. Neglect of the alphabetic principle makes English spelling exceptionally
difficult.

8. The difficulty of English spelling wastes time and produces unacceptably low
levels of literacy in English-speaking countries.

9. To improve literacy, English needs to modernise its spelling, as other
languages do.

10 There are no quick or easy solutions. As a first step, the idea of "managing"
English spelling, i.e. controlling it rather than letting it continue on its own
arbitrary way, should be adopted.

stbett@...








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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Mr. Upward is a spelling reform fanatic and does not listen to reason.
--
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@...

That may or may not be true, but we have no evidence of it here. Rather,
without evidence it sounds like a five year old calling someone names.
Yet, I am sure that there is something that caused you to come to a
reasoned conclusion instead of actually meaning to deliver a unsupported
insult. Could you elaborate on your thought processes on the matter that
would be likely to leave those of us with less experience in the
specific topic to be able to draw a valid conclusion? What is the reason
we should listen to to draw the same conclusion as you? It would be more
useful to us!

Best,

Barry

Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> Mr. Upward is a spelling reform fanatic and does not listen to reason.
> --
> Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@...
>
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

At it again, "Barry"?

Years ago, Upward sent me unsolicited his Simplified Spelling Society's
book, insisted on maintaining an email correspondence, and refused to
accept the basic facts about the history of and justifications for
English spelling.

i18n@... wrote:
>
> That may or may not be true, but we have no evidence of it here. Rather,
> without evidence it sounds like a five year old calling someone names.
> Yet, I am sure that there is something that caused you to come to a
> reasoned conclusion instead of actually meaning to deliver a unsupported
> insult. Could you elaborate on your thought processes on the matter that
> would be likely to leave those of us with less experience in the
> specific topic to be able to draw a valid conclusion? What is the reason
> we should listen to to draw the same conclusion as you? It would be more
> useful to us!
>
> Best,
>
> Barry
>
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > Mr. Upward is a spelling reform fanatic and does not listen to reason.
--
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@...

Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> At it again, "Barry"?


Yeah, if you send single sentence opinions unsupported by any facts
known to the rest of us, on a topic that may be of interest, I will
always call you out on it.

I figure I am doing you and us a favor. I suspect you know something, or
at least have put some thought into the matter, before arriving at your
conclusion.

I am certain you know that basic rhetoric and how to present a clearly
reasoned argument arriving at a conclusion. If you don't, then please
let us know, and accept my apologies for assuming otherwise.

But if you do (and like I said, I believe you do), then why spit out
single sentence conclusions without any supporting argument and expect
us to attach much significance to your conclusion?

>
> Years ago, Upward sent me unsolicited his Simplified Spelling Society's
> book, insisted on maintaining an email correspondence, and refused to
> accept the basic facts about the history of and justifications for
> English spelling.


OK, that is at least something. Probably not the best you can do, but it
at least gives us something to go on. Really, do you expect that we know
what correspondence you have had with him in the past? Are we to infer
that somehow?

What do you mean by "insisted on maintaining an email correspondence"?
You mean he sought you out for your opinion and then would not let you
leave for a period of time despite your repeated objections that you
wished to end the matter? How long/how many cycles was that? Again, it
helps us to understand your conclusion if you present more supporting
information.

Similarly, what are the basic facts and history that he refused to
accept and how did he express it? Has he since incorporated some of the
views into his own works or opinions?

Some feasible answers to these questions can certainly justify your
conclusions, but a large enough set of alternative answers, plus your
own reputation for being quick to attribute negative values to anyone
that isn't thinking along exactly the same lines as you (as demonstrated
in this thread among others), leaves enough ambiguity for the readers
here that we can't simply accept your judgment on upward without more
supporting data.

That was why I asked - to give you a chance to clarify your reasoning.
You may in fact be justified in this opinion of Upward. I don't know and
probably most of the readers here don't know either. this is your chance
to look smart and persuade us to come to your side. It is not as though
Upward is likely to show up and defend himself - this is your game to win!

I look forward to your more reasoned and nuanced discussion of Upward's
work that leads to your conclusion.

Best,

Barry

>
> i18n@... wrote:
> >
> > That may or may not be true, but we have no evidence of it here. Rather,
> > without evidence it sounds like a five year old calling someone names.
> > Yet, I am sure that there is something that caused you to come to a
> > reasoned conclusion instead of actually meaning to deliver a unsupported
> > insult. Could you elaborate on your thought processes on the matter that
> > would be likely to leave those of us with less experience in the
> > specific topic to be able to draw a valid conclusion? What is the reason
> > we should listen to to draw the same conclusion as you? It would be more
> > useful to us!
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Barry
> >
> > Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >
> > > Mr. Upward is a spelling reform fanatic and does not listen to reason.
> --
> Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@...
>
>
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> To unsubscribe: qalam-unsubscribe@egroups.com
>
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Who the hell do you think you are, "Barry"? (You sure don't give any of
the rest of us any hint of who you are.)

If you have an interest in spelling reform, and can't be bothered to
look at Upward's publications yourself, why should I hunt back some ten
years to do it for you?

i18n@... wrote:
>
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > At it again, "Barry"?
>
> Yeah, if you send single sentence opinions unsupported by any facts
> known to the rest of us, on a topic that may be of interest, I will
> always call you out on it.
>
> I figure I am doing you and us a favor. I suspect you know something, or
> at least have put some thought into the matter, before arriving at your
> conclusion.

Your suspicion is correct.

> I am certain you know that basic rhetoric and how to present a clearly
> reasoned argument arriving at a conclusion. If you don't, then please
> let us know, and accept my apologies for assuming otherwise.
>
> But if you do (and like I said, I believe you do), then why spit out
> single sentence conclusions without any supporting argument and expect
> us to attach much significance to your conclusion?

Because I don't have the time or inclination to waste on the topic.

> > Years ago, Upward sent me unsolicited his Simplified Spelling Society's
> > book, insisted on maintaining an email correspondence, and refused to
> > accept the basic facts about the history of and justifications for
> > English spelling.
>
> OK, that is at least something. Probably not the best you can do, but it
> at least gives us something to go on. Really, do you expect that we know
> what correspondence you have had with him in the past? Are we to infer
> that somehow?

Yes. If you don't know _my_ work and publications, what business do you
have bitching about them?

> What do you mean by "insisted on maintaining an email correspondence"?
> You mean he sought you out for your opinion and then would not let you
> leave for a period of time despite your repeated objections that you
> wished to end the matter? How long/how many cycles was that? Again, it
> helps us to understand your conclusion if you present more supporting
> information.

Golly, you managed to figure out what I meant all by your widdle own
self.

> Similarly, what are the basic facts and history that he refused to
> accept and how did he express it? Has he since incorporated some of the
> views into his own works or opinions?

If you don't know the history of English orthography, I suggest you
study it. You can find the essential references in the subchapter I
wrote on the topic in WWS.

> Some feasible answers to these questions can certainly justify your
> conclusions, but a large enough set of alternative answers, plus your
> own reputation for being quick to attribute negative values to anyone
> that isn't thinking along exactly the same lines as you (as demonstrated
> in this thread among others), leaves enough ambiguity for the readers
> here that we can't simply accept your judgment on upward without more
> supporting data.
>
> That was why I asked - to give you a chance to clarify your reasoning.
> You may in fact be justified in this opinion of Upward. I don't know and
> probably most of the readers here don't know either. this is your chance
> to look smart and persuade us to come to your side. It is not as though
> Upward is likely to show up and defend himself - this is your game to win!
>
> I look forward to your more reasoned and nuanced discussion of Upward's
> work that leads to your conclusion.

Keep looking.

> Best,

Liar.

> Barry
--
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@...

Who the hell do *you* think I am? Every time you complain I am hiding, I
get private messages form people laughing at you once they figure out
how easy it is too find out who I am.

Anyway, I can and will look up Upward. But if you think your messages so
far are a sufficient in response to Steve  Bett's original post, then
why did you even bother to respond at all? Just to show us you are in a
mood to,  and quite capable of ad hominem attacks today? We already all
know that you are capable of that.

Or perhaps, from your single sentence dismissal of Upward, we were
supposed to deduce that you had a prior exchange with him in the past? I
guess if we guessed that, given your history of testiness here, it would
be fair for us to deduce that you found it somehow unsatisfactory, I
admit, but still, the original supporting evidence in your first post in
this thread was clearly missing.

Look, we all know you are capable of much better writing, based on your
well known book.

In fact, I am quite certain you are capable of better, and if you would
reflect for a moment, you would see there is a progression of levels
from the details of writing systems you are so familiar with the
details, to the actual communication of ideas between individuals in
writing, which is what we practice on this mailing list.

Roughly speaking, that goes through spelling rules and the like,
grammar, and conventions in rhetorical styles. My concern is not that
you don't know the details of writing systems, or that coincidentally
you had an unsatisfactory exchange with Upward regarding spelling reform
matters.

Instead, as you noted in the past, this is a list of people with a
certain matter education, addressing topics that for many of us is a
professional matter. I believe, therefore, that it is incumbent on each
of us to use all of the tools available, at all of the levels I
mentioned, to communicate effectively.

Steve Bett, who a quick glance at my email archives shows has not posted
here before, or at least since at least a year ago, found us, and wrote
out a carefully written and fair set of questions. If you have an answer
for him, then he (and by extension all of us) deserves better from you
then what you have shown him on this thread. Old timers here know that
you are quick on the attack and short on the rhetoric, but at least
please make the rare newcomer seem welcome OK?

I know you can do much better then you started out with in this
thread.Like your parents perhaps, or certainly like a good teacher, I
*expect* you to do better.

Kicking and screaming and insisting you cant, or insulting me for
pointing out that your writing style is less then your best and less
then professional, isn't going to make you look any better in anyone's
eyes except perhaps your own. Probably what would work best is to simply
clarify the reasons for your conclusions about Upward to the best of
your abilities, or to suggest that you already have done that, and then
we can all move onward and upward, no pun intended.

This is not about how *I* am communicating, it is about how *you*
failed to communicate effectively. Why not just take a second chance and
start over? I know you *can* do it - but *will* you do it, or continue
to act like a petulant 4 year old boy? Only time will tell I guess...

Best,

Barry

Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> Who the hell do you think you are, "Barry"? (You sure don't give any of
> the rest of us any hint of who you are.)
>
> If you have an interest in spelling reform, and can't be bothered to
> look at Upward's publications yourself, why should I hunt back some ten
> years to do it for you?
>
> i18n@... wrote:
> >
> > Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >
> > > At it again, "Barry"?
> >
> > Yeah, if you send single sentence opinions unsupported by any facts
> > known to the rest of us, on a topic that may be of interest, I will
> > always call you out on it.
> >
> > I figure I am doing you and us a favor. I suspect you know something, or
> > at least have put some thought into the matter, before arriving at your
> > conclusion.
>
> Your suspicion is correct.
>
> > I am certain you know that basic rhetoric and how to present a clearly
> > reasoned argument arriving at a conclusion. If you don't, then please
> > let us know, and accept my apologies for assuming otherwise.
> >
> > But if you do (and like I said, I believe you do), then why spit out
> > single sentence conclusions without any supporting argument and expect
> > us to attach much significance to your conclusion?
>
> Because I don't have the time or inclination to waste on the topic.
>
> > > Years ago, Upward sent me unsolicited his Simplified Spelling
> Society's
> > > book, insisted on maintaining an email correspondence, and refused to
> > > accept the basic facts about the history of and justifications for
> > > English spelling.
> >
> > OK, that is at least something. Probably not the best you can do, but it
> > at least gives us something to go on. Really, do you expect that we know
> > what correspondence you have had with him in the past? Are we to infer
> > that somehow?
>
> Yes. If you don't know _my_ work and publications, what business do you
> have bitching about them?
>
> > What do you mean by "insisted on maintaining an email correspondence"?
> > You mean he sought you out for your opinion and then would not let you
> > leave for a period of time despite your repeated objections that you
> > wished to end the matter? How long/how many cycles was that? Again, it
> > helps us to understand your conclusion if you present more supporting
> > information.
>
> Golly, you managed to figure out what I meant all by your widdle own
> self.
>
> > Similarly, what are the basic facts and history that he refused to
> > accept and how did he express it? Has he since incorporated some of the
> > views into his own works or opinions?
>
> If you don't know the history of English orthography, I suggest you
> study it. You can find the essential references in the subchapter I
> wrote on the topic in WWS.
>
> > Some feasible answers to these questions can certainly justify your
> > conclusions, but a large enough set of alternative answers, plus your
> > own reputation for being quick to attribute negative values to anyone
> > that isn't thinking along exactly the same lines as you (as demonstrated
> > in this thread among others), leaves enough ambiguity for the readers
> > here that we can't simply accept your judgment on upward without more
> > supporting data.
> >
> > That was why I asked - to give you a chance to clarify your reasoning.
> > You may in fact be justified in this opinion of Upward. I don't know and
> > probably most of the readers here don't know either. this is your chance
> > to look smart and persuade us to come to your side. It is not as though
> > Upward is likely to show up and defend himself - this is your game
> to win!
> >
> > I look forward to your more reasoned and nuanced discussion of Upward's
> > work that leads to your conclusion.
>
> Keep looking.
>
> > Best,
>
> Liar.
>
> > Barry
> --
> Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@...
>
>
> www.egroups.com/group/qalam - world's writing systems.
> To unsubscribe: qalam-unsubscribe@egroups.com
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>       Service <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>.
>
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> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

i18n@... wrote:
>
> Who the hell do *you* think I am?

I think you're an ignorant blowhard and bully who knows and cares
nothing about writing systems, but who appointed himself the task of
teaching me manners.

> Every time you complain I am hiding, I
> get private messages form people laughing at you once they figure out
> how easy it is too find out who I am.

Then let them reveal your secret identity. I don't care to waste my time
hunting you down.

> Anyway, I can and will look up Upward. But if you think your messages so
> far are a sufficient in response to Steve  Bett's original post, then
> why did you even bother to respond at all? Just to show us you are in a
> mood to,  and quite capable of ad hominem attacks today? We already all
> know that you are capable of that.
>
> Or perhaps, from your single sentence dismissal of Upward, we were
> supposed to deduce that you had a prior exchange with him in the past? I
> guess if we guessed that, given your history of testiness here, it would
> be fair for us to deduce that you found it somehow unsatisfactory, I
> admit, but still, the original supporting evidence in your first post in
> this thread was clearly missing.
>
> Look, we all know you are capable of much better writing, based on your
> well known book.

What the hell do you think email is?

> In fact, I am quite certain you are capable of better, and if you would
> reflect for a moment, you would see there is a progression of levels
> from the details of writing systems you are so familiar with the
> details, to the actual communication of ideas between individuals in
> writing, which is what we practice on this mailing list.

"We" do? Got any examples?

> Roughly speaking, that goes through spelling rules and the like,
> grammar, and conventions in rhetorical styles. My concern is not that
> you don't know the details of writing systems, or that coincidentally
> you had an unsatisfactory exchange with Upward regarding spelling reform
> matters.
>
> Instead, as you noted in the past, this is a list of people with a
> certain matter education, addressing topics that for many of us is a
> professional matter. I believe, therefore, that it is incumbent on each
> of us to use all of the tools available, at all of the levels I
> mentioned, to communicate effectively.
>
> Steve Bett, who a quick glance at my email archives shows has not posted
> here before, or at least since at least a year ago, found us, and wrote
> out a carefully written and fair set of questions. If you have an answer
> for him, then he (and by extension all of us) deserves better from you
> then what you have shown him on this thread. Old timers here know that
> you are quick on the attack and short on the rhetoric, but at least
> please make the rare newcomer seem welcome OK?
>
> I know you can do much better then you started out with in this
> thread.Like your parents perhaps, or certainly like a good teacher, I
> *expect* you to do better.

And who the hell are you to play my "parents" or "teacher"?

> Kicking and screaming and insisting you cant, or insulting me for
> pointing out that your writing style is less then your best and less
> then professional, isn't going to make you look any better in anyone's
> eyes except perhaps your own. Probably what would work best is to simply
> clarify the reasons for your conclusions about Upward to the best of
> your abilities, or to suggest that you already have done that, and then
> we can all move onward and upward, no pun intended.
>
> This is not about how *I* am communicating, it is about how *you*
> failed to communicate effectively. Why not just take a second chance and
> start over? I know you *can* do it - but *will* you do it, or continue
> to act like a petulant 4 year old boy? Only time will tell I guess...

No, it's about how you manage to waste page after page bitching about
anything I post, without yourself ever having contributed a single word
about writing systems.

> Best,
>
> Barry
>
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > Who the hell do you think you are, "Barry"? (You sure don't give any of
> > the rest of us any hint of who you are.)
> >
> > If you have an interest in spelling reform, and can't be bothered to
> > look at Upward's publications yourself, why should I hunt back some ten
> > years to do it for you?
> >
> > i18n@... wrote:
> > >
> > > Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > >
> > > > At it again, "Barry"?
> > >
> > > Yeah, if you send single sentence opinions unsupported by any facts
> > > known to the rest of us, on a topic that may be of interest, I will
> > > always call you out on it.
> > >
> > > I figure I am doing you and us a favor. I suspect you know something, or
> > > at least have put some thought into the matter, before arriving at your
> > > conclusion.
> >
> > Your suspicion is correct.
> >
> > > I am certain you know that basic rhetoric and how to present a clearly
> > > reasoned argument arriving at a conclusion. If you don't, then please
> > > let us know, and accept my apologies for assuming otherwise.
> > >
> > > But if you do (and like I said, I believe you do), then why spit out
> > > single sentence conclusions without any supporting argument and expect
> > > us to attach much significance to your conclusion?
> >
> > Because I don't have the time or inclination to waste on the topic.
> >
> > > > Years ago, Upward sent me unsolicited his Simplified Spelling
> > Society's
> > > > book, insisted on maintaining an email correspondence, and refused to
> > > > accept the basic facts about the history of and justifications for
> > > > English spelling.
> > >
> > > OK, that is at least something. Probably not the best you can do, but it
> > > at least gives us something to go on. Really, do you expect that we know
> > > what correspondence you have had with him in the past? Are we to infer
> > > that somehow?
> >
> > Yes. If you don't know _my_ work and publications, what business do you
> > have bitching about them?
> >
> > > What do you mean by "insisted on maintaining an email correspondence"?
> > > You mean he sought you out for your opinion and then would not let you
> > > leave for a period of time despite your repeated objections that you
> > > wished to end the matter? How long/how many cycles was that? Again, it
> > > helps us to understand your conclusion if you present more supporting
> > > information.
> >
> > Golly, you managed to figure out what I meant all by your widdle own
> > self.
> >
> > > Similarly, what are the basic facts and history that he refused to
> > > accept and how did he express it? Has he since incorporated some of the
> > > views into his own works or opinions?
> >
> > If you don't know the history of English orthography, I suggest you
> > study it. You can find the essential references in the subchapter I
> > wrote on the topic in WWS.
> >
> > > Some feasible answers to these questions can certainly justify your
> > > conclusions, but a large enough set of alternative answers, plus your
> > > own reputation for being quick to attribute negative values to anyone
> > > that isn't thinking along exactly the same lines as you (as demonstrated
> > > in this thread among others), leaves enough ambiguity for the readers
> > > here that we can't simply accept your judgment on upward without more
> > > supporting data.
> > >
> > > That was why I asked - to give you a chance to clarify your reasoning.
> > > You may in fact be justified in this opinion of Upward. I don't know and
> > > probably most of the readers here don't know either. this is your chance
> > > to look smart and persuade us to come to your side. It is not as though
> > > Upward is likely to show up and defend himself - this is your game
> > to win!
> > >
> > > I look forward to your more reasoned and nuanced discussion of Upward's
> > > work that leads to your conclusion.
> >
> > Keep looking.
> >
> > > Best,
> >
> > Liar.
> >
> > > Barry
--
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@...

Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> i18n@... wrote:
> >
> > Who the hell do *you* think I am?
>
> I think you're an ignorant blowhard and bully who knows and cares
> nothing about writing systems, but who appointed himself the task of
> teaching me manners.


Which just shows how little you seem to know about anything outside the
narrow area of writing systems, including the closely related concept of
communicating an answer to a simple and honest question from  Steve Bett
to the best of your ability.

But maybe I am wrong. Maybe you *did* answer it to the best of your
ability.

I have given you enough rhetorical rope to back off and say - "hmm, I
was rushed, here is a more complete answer", but none seems to be
forthcoming. so I can only conclude a gentleman as smart as yourself has
explicitly chosen to use the rope to hang yourself, rhetorically speaking.

>
> > Every time you complain I am hiding, I
> > get private messages form people laughing at you once they figure out
> > how easy it is too find out who I am.
>
> Then let them reveal your secret identity. I don't care to waste my time
> hunting you down.

Hey if you are too lazy to try to find out then why do you keep worrying
about it and bringing it up?

>
> > Anyway, I can and will look up Upward. But if you think your messages so
> > far are a sufficient in response to Steve  Bett's original post, then
> > why did you even bother to respond at all? Just to show us you are in a
> > mood to,  and quite capable of ad hominem attacks today? We already all
> > know that you are capable of that.
> >
> > Or perhaps, from your single sentence dismissal of Upward, we were
> > supposed to deduce that you had a prior exchange with him in the past? I
> > guess if we guessed that, given your history of testiness here, it would
> > be fair for us to deduce that you found it somehow unsatisfactory, I
> > admit, but still, the original supporting evidence in your first post in
> > this thread was clearly missing.
> >
> > Look, we all know you are capable of much better writing, based on your
> > well known book.
>
> What the hell do you think email is?


Huh? the email you sent to the list in response to the original question
was one sentence long, condescending in tone at best. The original
question was carefully posed. Try to track the point here, even though
we have just seen advanced rhetoric may be too much for you, this is
only intermediate level :)

>
> > In fact, I am quite certain you are capable of better, and if you would
> > reflect for a moment, you would see there is a progression of levels
> > from the details of writing systems you are so familiar with the
> > details, to the actual communication of ideas between individuals in
> > writing, which is what we practice on this mailing list.
>
> "We" do? Got any examples?


Check the archives. Mine go back a few years. There may be more online
if you don't save stuff yourself. If you can't find an example of good
communication here in that time, then why are you even here? Just to
antagonize occasionally?

>
> > Roughly speaking, that goes through spelling rules and the like,
> > grammar, and conventions in rhetorical styles. My concern is not that
> > you don't know the details of writing systems, or that coincidentally
> > you had an unsatisfactory exchange with Upward regarding spelling reform
> > matters.
> >
> > Instead, as you noted in the past, this is a list of people with a
> > certain matter education, addressing topics that for many of us is a
> > professional matter. I believe, therefore, that it is incumbent on each
> > of us to use all of the tools available, at all of the levels I
> > mentioned, to communicate effectively.
> >
> > Steve Bett, who a quick glance at my email archives shows has not posted
> > here before, or at least since at least a year ago, found us, and wrote
> > out a carefully written and fair set of questions. If you have an answer
> > for him, then he (and by extension all of us) deserves better from you
> > then what you have shown him on this thread. Old timers here know that
> > you are quick on the attack and short on the rhetoric, but at least
> > please make the rare newcomer seem welcome OK?
> >
> > I know you can do much better then you started out with in this
> > thread.Like your parents perhaps, or certainly like a good teacher, I
> > *expect* you to do better.
>
> And who the hell are you to play my "parents" or "teacher"?


I am a member of a list you sent a horribly incomplete response to - I
have the same rights to respond via the list as anyone else. If you look
back you will see my first message was just a request for clarification,
and you responded with vitriol like I shot your dog or something.
Reflects badly on you, not me. Or at least I am comfortable with how
others will perceive your reasoning and mine when they read this. If you
are too, then so be it. But don't pretend I have no right to respond or
question your answers, especially since you know damn well they are
below your usually acceptable level of scholarship that you insist on
for yourself and others. Do you want me to quote your original response
in this thread to remind you what you wrote?

>
> > Kicking and screaming and insisting you cant, or insulting me for
> > pointing out that your writing style is less then your best and less
> > then professional, isn't going to make you look any better in anyone's
> > eyes except perhaps your own. Probably what would work best is to simply
> > clarify the reasons for your conclusions about Upward to the best of
> > your abilities, or to suggest that you already have done that, and then
> > we can all move onward and upward, no pun intended.
> >
> > This is not about how *I* am communicating, it is about how *you*
> > failed to communicate effectively. Why not just take a second chance and
> > start over? I know you *can* do it - but *will* you do it, or continue
> > to act like a petulant 4 year old boy? Only time will tell I guess...
>
> No, it's about how you manage to waste page after page bitching about
> anything I post, without yourself ever having contributed a single word
> about writing systems.


You didn't write anything in this thread that was of value to anyone
except exposing yourself as a blow hard who holds others to standards he
can't even meet for himself.

But then it is not the first time you have done that - backed yourself
into a rhetorical corner where you need to either admit you didn't write
your best work, or continue acting a fool.

Notice that fear of your insults about everyone being below you has
stalled the traffic on this list, and caused you to insult everyone hear
who has come in and not met *your* standards. Nicholas, Suzie, probably
Steve have been completely silenced. Me, I keep hoping that one day you
will let others just communicate without putting down their concerns
poor questions because they are not precisely the same as yours.

It is not as though either the moderator of this list or God stares back
at you when you look in the mirror - what is it in you that compels you
to treat everyone as though they are beneath you hear (and IIRC from the
last time when I googled you, other places you hang out too)(which
fortunately for me I am not )

I gotta get back to work now, so you can stew overnight if you want to
think up some more childish thoughts instead of actually commenting on
the substance of Steve Bett's questions....I can't wait to see which
choice you make - clarify your earlier responses, thereby demonstrating
and sharing professional knowledge and insight to the group, or insult
Barry yet again for asking for a clarification of your initial remarks.
I am not a betting man, but if I were, I would put my money on the
latter even though I personally prefer to see the former.


Best,

Barry

Who is "Barry"?
--
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@...

Steve Bett wrote:
>
> Please comment on these generalizations.
> Does everyone agree with them or are there some that you take issue with.
> They were written by Prof. Chris Upward (Aston U., UK).  Upward was a major
> contributor to The Oxford Companion to the English Language (Tom McArthur,
editor).

"Barry" has been nagging me all day to comment on these
"generalizations" that are beneath notice. "Barry" is apparently unable
to divine their inadequacies by himself.

> I have added my initialed comments in this reposting.  Feel free to do the
same.
>
> source page:  http://www.spellingsociety.org/news/n/n5pt1.php
>
> Ten Axioms on English Spelling
>       Edited and expanded by Chris Upward
>
> 1. Alphabets provide the simplest way to write most languages.

Define "alphabet" and "simple."

> SB: syllabaries are strong contenders when there are less than 5 vowels.
>        ref:  www.omniglot.com,   www.wikipedia.com   keyword: syllabary
>
> 2. The alphabet works by the principle that letters represent speech sounds.

Define "speech sound."

> SB: Most writing systems contain more than just sound signs.
>        They also include a few meaning signs (semagrams, word-signs,
logograms).
>
> 3. Literacy is easily acquired if the spelling tells readers the
pronunciation, and the pronunciation tells writers the spelling.

Evidence? And, is the purpose of an orthography ease in learning?

> SB: Literacy is more easily acquired under these conditions.  In fact
illiterates can learn highly phonemic writing systems in 3 months or less. 
Laubach (1960) said that 3 months was the average for 95% of the 300 languages
his organization developed literacy materials for.  Swadesh and Pike (1939)
claimed to have taught illiterate Indians in rural Mexico how to read and write
their own language and Spanish in two months.
>
>
>
> http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j30/revews.php
>
> 4. Pronunciation changes through time, undermining the match between spelling
and sound.

True.

> SB: See Webster quote
>
> 5. Spelling systems need modernizing periodically to restore the
sound-spelling match.

False. The English morphophonemics-spelling match is far more useful
than a sound-spelling match would be; moreover, English spelling works
equally well for all dialects of English (since the worldwide diversity
of English dialects began in earnest shortly _after_ the sound-based
standardization, so that each major modern variety of English differs
_in a systematic way_ from each other and from the orthography.

> SB: One of the arguments that Samuel Johnson gave for not matching spelling to
speech was that speech changed to quickly.  Had Johnson provided a dictionary
pronunciation key it would be easy to see how much English has changed since
1755.
>
> 6. By not systematically modernizing over nearly 1,000 years, English spelling
has lost touch with the alphabetic principle of spelling matching sound.

1000 years?? 1755 is 300 years (and American spelling settled down a
couple of generations after that).

> 7. Neglect of the alphabetic principle makes English spelling exceptionally
difficult.

The writer of this generalization has little or no experience with most
written languages.

> 8. The difficulty of English spelling wastes time and produces unacceptably
low levels of literacy in English-speaking countries.

Metric?

> 9. To improve literacy, English needs to modernise its spelling, as other
languages do.

False.

> 10 There are no quick or easy solutions. As a first step, the idea of
"managing" English spelling, i.e. controlling it rather than letting it continue
on its own arbitrary way, should be adopted.

False.

> stbett@...

I wonder how much of the above "Barry" will understand.

Note that "Barry" didn't himself bother to comment on the
"generalizations."
--
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@...

Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> Steve Bett wrote:
> >
> > Please comment on these generalizations.
> > Does everyone agree with them or are there some that you take issue
> with.
> > They were written by Prof. Chris Upward (Aston U., UK).  Upward was
> a major
> > contributor to The Oxford Companion to the English Language (Tom
> McArthur, editor).
>
> "Barry" has been nagging me all day to comment on these
> "generalizations" that are beneath notice. "Barry" is apparently unable
> to divine their inadequacies by himself.

Peter is absolutely correct that I don't consider myself among the
divine. If Peter is among the divine, well then I will have learned
something cool today for sure! :)

But as for the comments being beneath notice, that is his opinion, and
it only matters to me because he responded to the original thread. Which
means for a brief period of time before he hit the send button, he
didn't seem to think they were beneath notice at all. If he regrets it
now, then he can just drop the thread at any time.

To the extent I have been "nagging", it is for him to clarify the notice
he sent because, as  mere mortal, I could not read between the lines of
his mystical brief original presentation. I thank him in advance for
deigning to clarify, amazingly using the exact writing systems he is so
clearly expert at and master of!

>
> > I have added my initialed comments in this reposting.  Feel free to
> do the same.
> >
> > source page:  http://www.spellingsociety.org/news/n/n5pt1.php
> >
> > Ten Axioms on English Spelling
> >       Edited and expanded by Chris Upward
> >
> > 1. Alphabets provide the simplest way to write most languages.
>
> Define "alphabet" and "simple."


Oh wait. I forgot this is his style. He wants people to define
everything all the time. This is how it goes in every thread. Will we
see if he gets to the point about how Upward wrote nonsense? Can't wait
to see now!  ....

>
> > SB: syllabaries are strong contenders when there are less than 5 vowels.
> >        ref:  www.omniglot.com,   www.wikipedia.com   keyword: syllabary
> >
> > 2. The alphabet works by the principle that letters represent speech
> sounds.
>
> Define "speech sound."


Ah hah! I am typing this as I read it, so I am going to predict that
there is another request for a definition coming soon. I guess my
nagging may not have been successful in actually getting Peter to
express the thoughts that led to his earlier expressed  opinions....

At least I give him credit for trying so far!

>
> > SB: Most writing systems contain more than just sound signs.
> >        They also include a few meaning signs (semagrams, word-signs,
> logograms).
> >
> > 3. Literacy is easily acquired if the spelling tells readers the
> pronunciation, and the pronunciation tells writers the spelling.
>
> Evidence? And, is the purpose of an orthography ease in learning?


I think Steve was tossing out an outline as a topic for discussion, not
trying to *prove* anything. Do you have any evidence one way or the
other to support your opinions Peter? Presenting it would be in the
spirit of the discussion Steve wanted. I don't think he cares which way
the discussion goes so don't be shy!

>
> > SB: Literacy is more easily acquired under these conditions.  In
> fact illiterates can learn highly phonemic writing systems in 3 months
> or less.  Laubach (1960) said that 3 months was the average for 95% of
> the 300 languages his organization developed literacy materials for.
> Swadesh and Pike (1939) claimed to have taught illiterate Indians in
> rural Mexico how to read and write their own language and Spanish in
> two months.
> >
> >
> >
> > http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j30/revews.php
> >
> > 4. Pronunciation changes through time, undermining the match between
> spelling and sound.
>
> True.

Phew! I was expecting "Define time " :)

>
> > SB: See Webster quote
> >
> > 5. Spelling systems need modernizing periodically to restore the
> sound-spelling match.
>
> False. The English morphophonemics-spelling match is far more useful
> than a sound-spelling match would be; moreover, English spelling works
> equally well for all dialects of English (since the worldwide diversity
> of English dialects began in earnest shortly _after_ the sound-based
> standardization, so that each major modern variety of English differs
> _in a systematic way_ from each other and from the orthography.


OK, now that is useful and at last we are getting somewhere. A paragraph
full of facts and also opinions masquerading as facts, but still, pretty
good considering what we have seen before. Way to go Peter!

But, as an admitted mere mortal, I am having a hard time seeing how we
are going to reach the original conclusion " Mr. Upward is a spelling
reform fanatic and does not listen to reason." based on these responses
so far. But I don't know yet what lies ahead, it might pull together at
the end....

>
> > SB: One of the arguments that Samuel Johnson gave for not matching
> spelling to speech was that speech changed to quickly.  Had Johnson
> provided a dictionary pronunciation key it would be easy to see how
> much English has changed since 1755.
> >
> > 6. By not systematically modernizing over nearly 1,000 years,
> English spelling has lost touch with the alphabetic principle of
> spelling matching sound.
>
> 1000 years?? 1755 is 300 years (and American spelling settled down a
> couple of generations after that).


OK good question! Personally, I think the "1000 years" was referring to
the rough period of written English, not the time since Johnson's
dictionary. Would Peter change his response if the antecedent was
clearer to him?

>
> > 7. Neglect of the alphabetic principle makes English spelling
> exceptionally difficult.
>
> The writer of this generalization has little or no experience with most
> written languages.

Are there generally accepted rankings of the difficulty of spelling in
most languages?

I would consider the statement true if English were in the top 10% say,
especially if it is factored out over the number of people using written
English at any given time in history. But I am just a mortal dilettante
who is asking for the data to show or not show if the way a statistical
concept was expressed in written English is something we call can accept
or not. What is the data Peter or Steve?

Anyway, how many people on earth have "experience with most written
languages"? I would say very few, butt hat doesn't mean others can't
figure out patterns and characterizations themselves, even if this one
may or may not be justifiable. IOW, let's not use that a a platform by
which a small group of people, of which Peter would probably include
himself, are elevated as the only ones qualified to speak on a matter.

>
> > 8. The difficulty of English spelling wastes time and produces
> unacceptably low levels of literacy in English-speaking countries.
>
> Metric?

Yeah, good question, just like the one I just asked above.

>
> > 9. To improve literacy, English needs to modernise its spelling, as
> other languages do.
>
> False.

Yeah I gotta think that whatever gap in literacy we have, at least here
in the US can be addressed in larger part by better education (in some
sense) of those who are not yet literate then retraining those who are
already so. That would probably be true in other lands too.

>
> > 10 There are no quick or easy solutions. As a first step, the idea
> of "managing" English spelling, i.e. controlling it rather than
> letting it continue on its own arbitrary way, should be adopted.
>
> False.

I agree with Peter on this. Of what benefit is retraining a large
portion of the world's population and obsoleting all written and digital
English data just so some more people can possibly join the English
literacy club?

We could probably make Chinese or Japanese or (insert your favorite
difficult language to "spell" in here) easier to "spell" too, but would
it really benefit anyone?

>
> > stbett@...
>
> I wonder how much of the above "Barry" will understand.


I understand fine the part that you actually elaborated on. As for the
part where you ask for definitions in order to clarify what seem to me
pretty plain English sentences (which you have done in the past too) I
wonder about *your* comprehension. Actually, I know you comprehend fine,
it is again a weak rhetorical strategy you employ, maybe by habit.
Perhaps one deep dark night in private by yourself you can consider if
that is true or not. If it is, then maybe a personal reform is in order,
which you can put in effect without even notifying us!

Anyway, one thing I think we can say for sure is that my "nagging" for
you to explain the reasoning behind your initial claim that " Mr. Upward
is a spelling reform fanatic and does not listen to reason." has fallen
on deaf ears. There was no move to justify this claim in this past
message from Peter, and so we are still left wondering *why Peter holds
that opinion*.

>
> Note that "Barry" didn't himself bother to comment on the
> "generalizations."


Nor has anyone else. Other then you, and you seemed pretty reluctant
after your initial foray also.

But you intrigued me with your divine intuition about Upward and I am
still awaiting more gospel on how you came to that conclusion. I am
trying to learn from you and encourage you to share your knowledge,
since you seem to have some previously thought out opinions and
experience in the matter (Upward never contacted me, or if he did it was
deleted as spam and I didn't see it).

Even if you have an interesting anecdote about the man, that would be
fun for you to share with the list. Might make you seem a little like a
nice person instead of an omniscient divine presence, y'know? I do
better with nice people compared to divine ones :)

Best,

Barry

Hi Steve,

If I may speak as a teacher -

> Ten Axioms on English Spelling
>       Edited and expanded by Chris Upward
>
>
>
> 1. Alphabets provide the simplest way to write most languages.
>
> SB: syllabaries are strong contenders when there are less than 5
>vowels.
>        ref:  www.omniglot.com,   www.wikipedia.com   keyword:
>syllabary

Definitely, this statement is meaningless without definitions, as
Mr. Daniels has said.

However, children do go through a morphemic/syllabic stage of
spelling before the alphabetic stage.

I visited a kindergarten in HK last year where children were
learning early writing in Chinese. (No Pinyin only Han characters.)
They were going through similar but not identical stages as children
writing in English.

>
> 2. The alphabet works by the principle that letters represent
>speech sounds.
>
> SB: Most writing systems contain more than just sound signs.
>        They also include a few meaning signs (semagrams, word-
>signs, logograms).

I am afraid speech sounds doesn't mean much. Most writing systems
are discussed based on the type of phonology that is represented.

All writing represents speech sounds but of what type: consonants
and vowels, consonants, aksara, onset and rime, syllabics and
finals, syllables, morae, features?

After that, logography is is discussed as a different dimension -
but I could go on and on.
>
> 3. Literacy is easily acquired if the spelling tells readers the
>pronunciation, and the pronunciation tells writers the spelling.

I hate to do this but yes, define literacy.

In various highly publicized international literacy studies
Finland,  Scotland and Japan have all done well - all different
types of writing systems. The highest correlation is usually
considered to be between "economic support of education
infrastructure" and "level of literacy". You want to do a lot of
research to make a statement about this one way or another.

One Study comparing English and German children showed that in grade
3 German children were ahead of English children, but in grade 6
they could all read at the same level of competency. The head-start
did not alter the end product.

I think the consensus is that anyone can learn to read any writing
system, but some writing systems are harder to spell. I teach
dyslexics so I don't say this lightly.

Personally, I am waiting for a better spell-checker - one that will
accept 'wut' for 'what'

Anyway, you get the picture.


> SB: Literacy is more easily acquired under these conditions.  In
>fact illiterates can learn highly phonemic writing systems in 3
>months or less.  Laubach (1960) said that 3 months was the average
>for 95% of the 300 languages his organization developed literacy
>materials for.  Swadesh and Pike (1939) claimed to have taught
>illiterate Indians in rural Mexico how to read and write their own
>language and Spanish in two months.
>
> Kalmar says that a hybrid Tarascan /tə'raas kən /
>alphabet had been devised in 1939 by Swadesh, Lathrop, and Pike, as
>part of the Tarascan Project. (p.108) "The Tarascan Project became
>the showpiece of adult biliteracy campaigns ... elevated [by
>UNESCO, 1948] to paradigmatic status as a model for how to conduct
>adult biliteracy campaigns in third world countries .... The
>Tarascan Project established once and for all that indios -
>illiterate indigenous monolingual adults - could learn to read and
>write both their own language and the metropolitan language in less
>than a month or two - provided both languages were systematically
>coded in a single alphabet deliberately designed to be as hybrid as
>possible, on the principle of one letter, one hybrid phoneme."

The problem with these studies is that they are using a completely
different, if valid in its own way, definition of literacy.

Suzanne

>--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "suzmccarth" <suzmccarth@y...> wrote:
> Hi Steve,
>
> If I may speak as a teacher -
> I hate to do this but yes, define literacy.
>
> In various highly publicized international literacy studies
> Finland,  Scotland and Japan have all done well - all different
> types of writing systems. The highest correlation is usually
> considered to be between "economic support of education
> infrastructure" and "level of literacy". You want to do a lot of
> research to make a statement about this one way or another.

A quick google search only shows results by either prose literacy or
document literacy and many international studies have too few
participant countries to be significant.  However, Sweden, Canada
(BC), Australia and New Zealand have also done well.

Results of these studies look like this.

http://www.nifl.gov/nifl/facts/IALS.html

http://www.unicef.org/pon96/inlitera.htm

You want to have a low % at level 1 and a high % at level 3/4/5.

Here are some of the definitions of literacy used.

http://www11.hrsdc.gc.ca/en/cs/sp/hrsdc/arb/publications/research/199
8-001257/page05.shtml

http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/en/hip/lld/nls/Surveys/ialscrbk.shtml

http://www.nifl.gov/nifl/facts/IALS.html

You can probably see now why it is so hard to quote literacy stats.

Suzanne

suzmccarth wrote:
>
> Hi Steve,
>
> If I may speak as a teacher -
>
> > Ten Axioms on English Spelling
> >       Edited and expanded by Chris Upward
> >
> >
> >
> > 1. Alphabets provide the simplest way to write most languages.
> >
> > SB: syllabaries are strong contenders when there are less than 5
> >vowels.
> >        ref:  www.omniglot.com,   www.wikipedia.com   keyword:
> >syllabary
>
> Definitely, this statement is meaningless without definitions, as
> Mr. Daniels has said.

Suzanne gets an A. Barry will continue to get Fs if he doesn't learn
what questions to ask.

> However, children do go through a morphemic/syllabic stage of
> spelling before the alphabetic stage.
>
> I visited a kindergarten in HK last year where children were
> learning early writing in Chinese. (No Pinyin only Han characters.)
> They were going through similar but not identical stages as children
> writing in English.
>
> >
> > 2. The alphabet works by the principle that letters represent
> >speech sounds.
> >
> > SB: Most writing systems contain more than just sound signs.
> >        They also include a few meaning signs (semagrams, word-
> >signs, logograms).
>
> I am afraid speech sounds doesn't mean much. Most writing systems
> are discussed based on the type of phonology that is represented.
>
> All writing represents speech sounds but of what type: consonants
> and vowels, consonants, aksara, onset and rime, syllabics and
> finals, syllables, morae, features?
>
> After that, logography is is discussed as a different dimension -
> but I could go on and on.
> >
> > 3. Literacy is easily acquired if the spelling tells readers the
> >pronunciation, and the pronunciation tells writers the spelling.
>
> I hate to do this but yes, define literacy.
>
> In various highly publicized international literacy studies
> Finland,  Scotland and Japan have all done well - all different
> types of writing systems. The highest correlation is usually
> considered to be between "economic support of education
> infrastructure" and "level of literacy". You want to do a lot of
> research to make a statement about this one way or another.
>
> One Study comparing English and German children showed that in grade
> 3 German children were ahead of English children, but in grade 6
> they could all read at the same level of competency. The head-start
> did not alter the end product.
>
> I think the consensus is that anyone can learn to read any writing
> system, but some writing systems are harder to spell. I teach
> dyslexics so I don't say this lightly.
>
> Personally, I am waiting for a better spell-checker - one that will
> accept 'wut' for 'what'
>
> Anyway, you get the picture.
>
> > SB: Literacy is more easily acquired under these conditions.  In
> >fact illiterates can learn highly phonemic writing systems in 3
> >months or less.  Laubach (1960) said that 3 months was the average
> >for 95% of the 300 languages his organization developed literacy
> >materials for.  Swadesh and Pike (1939) claimed to have taught
> >illiterate Indians in rural Mexico how to read and write their own
> >language and Spanish in two months.
> >
> > Kalmar says that a hybrid Tarascan /tə'raas kən /
> >alphabet had been devised in 1939 by Swadesh, Lathrop, and Pike, as
> >part of the Tarascan Project. (p.108) "The Tarascan Project became
> >the showpiece of adult biliteracy campaigns ... elevated [by
> >UNESCO, 1948] to paradigmatic status as a model for how to conduct
> >adult biliteracy campaigns in third world countries .... The
> >Tarascan Project established once and for all that indios -
> >illiterate indigenous monolingual adults - could learn to read and
> >write both their own language and the metropolitan language in less
> >than a month or two - provided both languages were systematically
> >coded in a single alphabet deliberately designed to be as hybrid as
> >possible, on the principle of one letter, one hybrid phoneme."
>
> The problem with these studies is that they are using a completely
> different, if valid in its own way, definition of literacy.
--
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@...