The post you made before you replied to WeepingElf, was easier to understand; the post in which you replied to WeepingElf, was longer and tougher.Salmoneus wrote: ↑28 Jan 2024 15:44 I'm sorry if my last post sounded aggressive; I'm just frustrated with myself, because after writing hundreds and hundred of words to explain something that to me seems incredibly obvious and originates in about two sentences on wikipedia, evidently I'm still speaking gibberish that nobody can understand!
So don't be aggressive or frustrated with yourself - you're taking the time and effort to make certain your explanations are understood, which is appreciated.
hundreds?Errr... huh? I'm not claiming that any one writing system is innate, if that's what you mean. All writing systems have to be learnt - in an alphabet you don't start off knowing what P and I mean, and in a syllabary you don't start out knowing what PI means. You have to learn these things. But with an alphabet, once you learn P and I, and other phoneme symbols (probably only a few dozen) you know what PI means, and all the hundreds of other syllable combinations formed from those elements. Whereas in a syllabary you have to learn all of the hundreds of syllable symbols independently.But that presupposes that we start out knowing what P and what I indicate, thus we know what PI indicates when using an alphabet...but we don't start out knowing what PI indicates?This is what we call a SYLLABIC writing system. It consists of symbols (which can consist of more than one mark on the page!), each of which indicates a specific syllable. You have to learn which symbol represents each syllable.
Now let's go back to a system more like ours. In this system, SYLLABLES ARE STILL WRITTEN. In the word "pimento" you can still see the syllables, PI, MEN, and TO, and they are STILL IN ORDER. In a line, as it were.
The difference is, in THIS system, these syllable-symbols are DECOMPOSABLE. The syllable-symbol PI consists of a P, and then an I. OK? P + I = PI. If you know what P indicates and you know what I indicates, you can put them together to work out what PI indicates. You can't do that in a syllabary.
what happened to the use of this?
__ | -e | -a | -o |
b- |
t- |
n- |
I thought thats why you took the time to explain coherent and noncoherent earlier.
I didn't realize you were describing English; I understood you were using words from English.What? No! No, when you learn English, that's how you write! You are taught to write from left to right? Aren't you? Is this just me? Am I going insane!?If we're making our own system, rather than adapting a system we picked up from somewhere/one else.So, one rule a writing system COULD have is that, WITHIN EACH SYLLABLE, the part symbolising the NUCLEUS is always written at the BACK of the part symbolising the ONSET. Which in a language like English means to the RIGHT of the onset.
So, to make the syllable PI, we don't just randomly place P and I together. We specifically write the I to the RIGHT of the P. OK?
here's how that reads to me:There is a difference between "X doesn't to always be Y" and "X has to not always be Y". Isn't there?wait...whats the difference between "consistently" and "always" in this case - it reads like you're contradicting yourself.Now, the nuclei in an alphasyllabary don't HAVE to be to the FRONT of the onsets. They just have to NOT be consistently to the BACK. Maybe the symbol for one nucleus is always at the front of the onset symbol, but the symbol for a different nucleus is always at the back.
Dogs are consistently not always warmblooded.
Dogs are always warmblooded.
Both statements are True.
My confusion comes from you explaining - over several posts - that the onsets and nucleus (nuclei?) are important and must be pronounced both as one is learning them & as one is reading them.I don't... I don't understand your confusion here.wait...And for sake of completeness: the abugida principle, which is unrelated to all of this in theory, is that in some writing systems, a SPECIFIC VALUE OF NUCLEUS is not written at all, and instead an onset written without a nucleus is read as having that nucleus.
Syllabaries cannot be abugidas, because NO nucleus is explicitly and identifiably written in them. However, both alphabets and alphasyllabaries can be, in theory.but if there is no nucleus in a CV, then why do alphabets count as having a nucleus? surely they too are only (at least in theory) purely onset because they are (at least in principle) one sign = one sound, aka either C or V.{nevermind that; my bad}
wait...they aren't abugidas because something isn't written in it? But the people who read those syllabaries still speak the nucleus, right?
Abugidas don't write certain vowels.
Syllabaries have a distinct symbol for each syllable.
Yes, people who speak LANGUAGES that are sometimes written in SYLLABARIES do still pronounce vowels. Why wouldn't they!?
...and then you say that "Syllabaries cannot be abugidas, because NO nucleus is explicitly and identifiably written in them. However, both alphabets (...) can be"
But you also said that, in an alphabet, every consonant and every vowel gets its own sign (at least in principle it should)...so wouldn't that make each V and each C an onset unto itself?
Also I've spent the time since my last post, trying to figure out what an alphabetic syllabary would look like, and my brain keeps getting a 404 File Not Found.