How many times have the uesti invented writing?

[rotting bones]

Only twice by my count. Once by the Wede:i, which inspired Old Skourene hieroglyphs (for lack of a better word) and survived as Axunaic writing systems. Once by the Uytainese, and their system spread across Arcel. The Cuzeians were directly taught by the iliu, so they don't count. Do we know of any other instances? Do the other continents have writing?

It seems incredible to me that Almean humans have never invented the alphabet on their own, and yet IIRC, it has happened only a few times on our planet without some foreign inspiration or coercion. (Greek, Korean and Sogdian derivatives)

[brandrinn]

Wait, the Verdurian script is an alphabet, isn't it?

[con quesa]

Only twice by my count. Once by the Wede:i, which inspired Old Skourene hieroglyphs (for lack of a better word) and survived as Axunaic writing systems. Once by the Uytainese, and their system spread across Arcel. The Cuzeians were directly taught by the iliu, so they don't count. Do we know of any other instances? Do the other continents have writing?

It seems incredible to me that Almean humans have never invented the alphabet on their own, and yet IIRC, it has happened only a few times on our planet without some foreign inspiration or coercion. (Greek, Korean and Sogdian derivatives)

The alphabet was apparantly independantly invented exactly once in Earth's history, by speakers of foreign semetic languages in Sinai, and every other alphabetic script is either descended from that Proto-Sinaitic script or created a priori by people familiar with the principles of an alphabetic script.

Writing, although not alphabetic writing, was invented probably three times in Earth's history, by the Chinese, the Mayans, and the Sumerians (and by the Egyptians as well depending on whether or not heiroglyphics were inspired by Sumerian writing, although they probably were).

So, the Almean situation matches Earth's situation pretty well. Three independant inventions of writing across two continants, one of which was alphabetic. The only difference is that the alphabetic invention came from another species on Almea whereas it was ultimately a descendant of non-alphabetic Sumerian and/or Egyptian writing on Earth. Presumably if Iliu were living in the Mediterranean Sea they might've taught some Semetic people alphabetic writing while they were teaching them knowledge of Iainos (Yahweh) and then that's where we'd have to say all of our modern alphabetic writing systems come from!

[rotting bones]

Wait, the Verdurian script is an alphabet, isn't it?

Borrowed from Cuezi.

The alphabet was apparantly independantly invented exactly once in Earth's history, by speakers of foreign semetic languages in Sinai, and every other alphabetic script is either descended from that Proto-Sinaitic script or created a priori by people familiar with the principles of an alphabetic script.

I'm pretty sure you mean the abjad stage, which then gave rise to alphabets. Even so, what about Demotic Egyptian and Korean Hangul? I don't know how scholarly this is, but apparently, we're not even sure of the exact origins of Brahmi anymore: http://www.hindu.com/2004/05/26/stories ... 871200.htm

Writing, although not alphabetic writing, was invented probably three times in Earth's history, by the Chinese, the Mayans, and the Sumerians (and by the Egyptians as well depending on whether or not heiroglyphics were inspired by Sumerian writing, although they probably were).

Lol no, writing has been discovered several times even without including some intriguing possibilities in prehistoric Europe, India, South America, etc: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing But that may just be due to Earth's greater land area. Either way, I'm mainly interested in other continents and off-the-beaten-track developments we may not have heard of much. BTW, I've never heard it seriously argued that Egyptian hieroglyphs were inspired by cuneiforms before.

So, the Almean situation matches Earth's situation pretty well. Three independant inventions of writing across two continants, one of which was alphabetic. The only difference is that the alphabetic invention came from another species on Almea whereas it was ultimately a descendant of non-alphabetic Sumerian and/or Egyptian writing on Earth. Presumably if Iliu were living in the Mediterranean Sea they might've taught some Semetic people alphabetic writing while they were teaching them knowledge of Iainos (Yahweh) and then that's where we'd have to say all of our modern alphabetic writing systems come from!

Proto-Canaanite isn't an alphabet as such. I just remembered, is the Jippirasti alphabet a real alphabet?

[Dewrad]

BTW, I've never heard it seriously argued that Egyptian hieroglyphs were inspired by cuneiforms before.

Really? It's hardly a crazy, minority fringe viewpoint. If you've actually never encountered it before, perhaps you should read more. For example, "The Origin of Egyptian Hieroglyphs", by Henry George Fischer, in The Origins of Writing (ed. Wayne M. Senner, University of Nebraska Press, 1991. Page 61 onwards, to be precise. You can even look it up on Google Books.)

Proto-Canaanite isn't an alphabet as such. I just remembered, is the Jippirasti alphabet a real alphabet?

IIRC, Zomp has said it's a featural system like Hangul.

[rotting bones]

Really? It's hardly a crazy, minority fringe viewpoint.

No, but I really don't remember this position being argued with sufficient scholarly seriousness. Then again, my memory is a product of my environment. Its retentive power is very high over a period of two days or so.

IIRC, Zomp has said it's a featural system like Hangul.

Great, so the uesti did produce a real native alphabet after all. More info, please?

[hwhatting]

I'm pretty sure you mean the abjad stage, which then gave rise to alphabets. Even so, what about Demotic Egyptian and Korean Hangul? I don't know how scholarly this is, but apparently, we're not even sure of the exact origins of Brahmi anymore: http://www.hindu.com/2004/05/26/stories ... 871200.htm

As a rule, never trust a popular (i.e. non-scientific) newspaper from country X claiming that "the oldest specimen of Y was found in X" or that "feature Y (writing, pottery, toothpicks) originated in country X".

[brandrinn]

I'm pretty sure you mean the abjad stage, which then gave rise to alphabets. Even so, what about Demotic Egyptian and Korean Hangul? I don't know how scholarly this is, but apparently, we're not even sure of the exact origins of Brahmi anymore: http://www.hindu.com/2004/05/26/stories ... 871200.htm

As a rule, never trust a popular (i.e. non-scientific) newspaper from country X claiming that "the oldest specimen of Y was found in X" or that "feature Y (writing, pottery, toothpicks) originated in country X".

This is especially true if country X is on this list:

India
China
Japan
Macedonia
Turkey
Greece
Bulgaria
Iran
Former Yugoslavia

[the duke of nuke]

Why not simply "any country in the Eastern Mediterranean / Black Sea region?"

[hwhatting]

Why not simply "any country in the Eastern Mediterranean / Black Sea region?"

India? China? Japan? You hear a lot about the new Chinese colonialism these days, but somehow I missed the Chinese territorial expansion into that region...

[the duke of nuke]

Ok, yes. "India, China, Japan, and any country in the Eastern Mediterranean / Black Sea region."

[brandrinn]

Ok, yes. "India, China, Japan, and any country in the Eastern Mediterranean / Black Sea region."

Those dastardly, militaristic, expansionist Serbs are at it again, eh? All the way to the Black Sea?

[Yiuel Raumbesrairc]

Korean Hangul was, oddly enough, inspired by Brahmi, by a long convoluted way (not the shapes though, these were local inventions). Its influence goes even into Japan, where the go-juu-on table is arranged the way they sorted sounds in India.

As for Jippirasti's writing system, it seems to come from Skourene sources. And that ultimately comes from Axunai, thus Wedei.

[Serali]

Korean Hangul was, oddly enough, inspired by Brahmi, by a long convoluted way (not the shapes though, these were local inventions). Its influence goes even into Japan, where the go-juu-on table is arranged the way they sorted sounds in India.

As for Jippirasti's writing system, it seems to come from Skourene sources. And that ultimately comes from Axunai, thus Wedei.

WHAT?!

I have never heard of this and Korean in general is my favorite language/writing system.

Holy shit.

[rotting bones]

Korean Hangul was, oddly enough, inspired by Brahmi, by a long convoluted way (not the shapes though, these were local inventions). Its influence goes even into Japan, where the go-juu-on table is arranged the way they sorted sounds in India.

I thought the Siddham route was pure gossip. Or are you thinking of the Tibetan script?

As for Jippirasti's writing system, it seems to come from Skourene sources. And that ultimately comes from Axunai, thus Wedei.

Where are these posts? Please? Anyone?

As a rule, never trust a popular (i.e. non-scientific) newspaper from country X claiming that "the oldest specimen of Y was found in X" or that "feature Y (writing, pottery, toothpicks) originated in country X".

All it does is report the existence of Tamil Brahmi inscriptions a few centuries older than previously known samples. (only hinting at the origin of writing business, which seems justified) Didn't exactly sound crazy loony to me.

[brandrinn]

Korean Hangul was, oddly enough, inspired by Brahmi, by a long convoluted way (not the shapes though, these were local inventions). Its influence goes even into Japan, where the go-juu-on table is arranged the way they sorted sounds in India.

I thought the Siddham route was pure gossip. Or are you thinking of the Tibetan script?

He's probably talking about Phags-pa, which was developed by Tibetans and loosely based on the Tibetan script. That theory is not universally accepted, though Joseon Koreans would certainly be aware of Phags-pa and other ultimately Brahmi-inspired scripts.

[Yiuel Raumbesrairc]

I was actually referring to phonological awareness, more than any influence over the shape of things. The way consonants and vowels are ordered in Extreme East Asia (Japan and Korea) has a striking ressemblance to how phonemes are ordered in Ancient India. The whole Hangul concept may be a local innovation, but its phonological basis seems to be, at least, influenced by that Indian phonological awareness. Thus my comment.

As for Tzuro script, I think it's all described in the Historical Atlas. Skourene writing system being based on Wedei/Axunashin is, however, described in the Old Skourene article.

[Thomas Winwood]

The way consonants and vowels are ordered in Extreme East Asia (Japan and Korea) has a striking ressemblance to how phonemes are ordered in Ancient India.

That's Sanskrit linguistics being carried by Buddhism via China into Japan and Korea. Most sources give the idea that Hangul is graphically based on seal-script variants of Phags-pa as "disputed", but that seems to me like people are refusing to just go ahead and say it's true because there's three or four eighty-year-olds still adamantly denying it.

[rotting bones]

He's probably talking about Phags-pa, which was developed by Tibetans and loosely based on the Tibetan script. That theory is not universally accepted, though Joseon Koreans would certainly be aware of Phags-pa and other ultimately Brahmi-inspired scripts.

Thanks, I almost forgot about that whole script unification business.

I was actually referring to phonological awareness, more than any influence over the shape of things. The way consonants and vowels are ordered in Extreme East Asia (Japan and Korea) has a striking ressemblance to how phonemes are ordered in Ancient India. The whole Hangul concept may be a local innovation, but its phonological basis seems to be, at least, influenced by that Indian phonological awareness. Thus my comment.

If influence such as an indirect transmission of ideas isn't allowed, then writing really was discovered 3/4 times on Earth. The Koreans didn't invent writing, of course, but they did, like the Greeks, take the final leap to a pure alphabetic system on their own with no help from foreign scholars or ilii.

The Cia-Cia even adopted a Hangul Koreanization for reasons I dare not speculate upon: http://thejakartaglobe.com/home/southea ... gue/322636 ("reflects our efforts for years to spread Hangul abroad"? wtf)

As for Tzuro script, I think it's all described in the Historical Atlas. Skourene writing system being based on Wedei/Axunashin is, however, described in the Old Skourene article.

How can it be a derivative of OS and a featural alphabet at the same time? (is triutta a featural system?) Never mind, I'll the go through the Historical Atlas again. The last I opened it was around the time of Axunashin, I think.

[brandrinn]

I did some quick Googling, and yep, the orders of the letters in Japanese are pretty obviously influenced by the Brahmi family of scripts. For example:

Devanagari: K CH T (N?) P
Phags-pa: K CH T N P (M?)
Kana: K S T N P

But Hangul doesn't fit the pattern quite so well. The order of Korean letters is: K N T L M P S... etc. K still comes first, and T comes before P, but otherwise the order is messed up. Maybe it's a recent thing.

[캉탁]

I have never heard of this...

Imagine my surprise.

But Hangul doesn't fit the pattern quite so well. The order of Korean letters is: K N T L M P S... etc. K still comes first, and T comes before P, but otherwise the order is messed up. Maybe it's a recent thing.

The alphabetic sequence (collating sequence) does not necessarily need to match closely, if you look at the modern Latin Alphabet, it is at least as removed with regards to sequence from whence it came.

[zompist]

The alphabetic sequence (collating sequence) does not necessarily need to match closely, if you look at the modern Latin Alphabet, it is at least as removed with regards to sequence from whence it came.

Not at all... the exact order of the Semitic alphabet was preserved in Greek, and thence to Latin. The changes are due to sound change, dropped letters, and added ones (usually added at the end).

[캉탁]

Not at all... the exact order of the Semitic alphabet was preserved in Greek, and thence to Latin. The changes are due to sound change, dropped letters, and added ones (usually added at the end).

Ok, but the change of order that occurred was just as significant as that from the obvious Brahmic derived scripts, which is the point I was actually trying to make. I wasn't really commenting on the reasons for the change of order.

[zompist]

And my point is that there was no change of order. The Roman alphabet is precisely the same order as the Semitic:

A = ʔalep
B = bet
C = gimel
D = dalet
E = he
F = waw
(G is an innovation from C)
H = ħet
I = jod
K = kappa
L = lamed
M = mem
N = nun
O = ʕajin
P = pe
Q = qop
R = resh
S = šin
T = tau

(remaining letters added in Greek or Latin)

[캉탁]

And my point is that there was no change of order. The Roman alphabet is precisely the same order as the Semitic:

Your missing the zayn. Also, I would say that the loss or addition of letters could be considered as a change in collating sequence.