Rhetorica
Your Writing System Sucks
Anthologica Universe Atlas / Users / Rhetorica

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Samantics

Chlorine, Fluorine

Chlorine, Chlorine, Chlorine, Chlorine
Please purify every single last dram
Fluorine, Fluorine, Fluorine, Fluorine
I'm begging of you, bind to all that you can […]
read more · 2 years ago

Cursive Scripts are the Road to Awe, Part 3

In the first two parts of this series, we examined some of the physiological factors that motivate how real scripts developed into their preferred shapes, as well as evidence from history where lack of a clear set of rules (or clear knowledge of those rules) impacted the quality of text. […]
read more · 3 years ago

Cursive Scripts are the Road to Awe, Part 2

Last time, we looked at arm biomechanics and how physiology affects the ability of humans to produce shapes, especially straight lines, consistently. The prognostication was not exactly uplifting: we established that human muscles are naturally disposed to draw wobbly lines, and that extensive practice is required to draw a simple, straight horizontal line consistently without slowing down. But before we get into the marvels of how cursive writing avoids these problems, we ought to look at some of the strategies that various scripts developed to mitigate them prior to the invention of connected writing, as these approaches are still very much evident in all real-world continuous scripts. (And considering how bad the average person's handwriting is these days, you might even improve your natural-language legibility along the way...) […]
read more · 3 years ago
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Ex foris

? Rhetorica Your Writing System Sucks
posts: 1292
, Kelatetía: Dis, Major Belt 1
message
quoting Izambri, Duke, the Findible League:
Another one about dictionaries.

In the related section, what are we supposed to write when we have homophones and we use the <!>numeral code?

For example, I have both yr and –yr, but in this entry you can see that in related the first one appears as «yr1» if I put yr<!>1 there.

There was some missing code in how the related words section was displayed. It should be spiffy now.
? Rhetorica Your Writing System Sucks
posts: 1292
, Kelatetía: Dis, Major Belt 1
message
Looks like a good start. This is called a philosophical language; you might be interested to see how others have approached the problems inherent in philosophical languages, like how to organize concepts, or how referring to specific objects can require really long words. Many languages of this category are designed to seek absolute, canonical names for all things, and they run into some special problems—like how to avoid cultural bias, how to refer to unknown individuals, how to deal with numbering sequences that contain spurious or lost entries,1 and how to refer to paradoxical objects.2

_________________________
1. Are you still the third child in your family after your older siblings die? What about step-siblings, or illegitimate children? Even if you come up with a strategy to solve these problems—which would require making a culturally-based value judgement about what constitutes family membership, and is hence not neutral—how can you possibly account for miscarriages your parents never told you about? Only with total knowledge of the universe can all sequence-numbering issues reliably be avoided.
2. Everything good in life can be ruined by a carefully-constructed diagonal argument.
? Rhetorica Your Writing System Sucks
posts: 1292
, Kelatetía: Dis, Major Belt 1
message
We can only assume you were paid in Soundland Dollars for the commission.
in thread: Money Thread

Rhetorica
Your Writing System Sucks
last seen: 2 months ago
posts: 1292
Kelatetía

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Creator of Lilitika and co-creator of Thet.

I started this site in late 2013 to give the conlanging and conworlding community a specially-tailored way to showcase projects. I don't do quite as much administrating any more, and sometimes I can be scarce because I have so many other big responsibilities, but I try to maintain and improve things whenever I can.

See my profile page elsewhere for more information about me.
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