4 ms·

So what's the actual benefit of this? Maybe there's something I'm missing but couldn't they just use any alphabet that has enough symbols to represent the sound

So what's the actual benefit of this? Maybe there's something I'm missing but couldn't they just use any alphabet that has enough symbols to represent the sounds in their language? What's actually gained from this?

ivan_gammel 7y ago
They had two alphabets which were familiar to them but didn’t fit and should be adjusted, probably repurposing some letters for different sounds. Any other alphabet was completely foreign to their culture, would probably require some adjustments too and thus would not bring any benefits besides some existing fonts. As languages would evolve, it would create an incompatible fork anyway. Own alphabet brings 100% compatibility, cultural heritage and reduced cognitive load when learning new languages (ask English speakers how they figure out how Z, S or V should be pronounced in German).
- Smithalicious 7y ago
  >100% compatibility Again, this could just as well have been achieved by just adapting a different alphabet, so this is not really a benefit to inventing your own alphabet >cultural heritage That depends on what you take "cultural heritage" to mean. I don't think inventing something new from scratch actually brings any kind of heritage. It looks like a case of "we just need to have something unique because, uhh, reasons". >reduced cognitive load when learning new languages I'm not convinced this is true. You're trading not having to switch mindsets about the sounds when switching languages against not having general familiarity with the alphabet, and I'm not sure which has a bigger impact on cognitive load. I also don't think either of those really has a big impact; the fact that a different language just has different sounds seems to be the main cause of cognitive load here. All in all I think these are some pretty myopic benefits at best, and do not justify the gradeoff of having to add yet more stuff to unicode, make fonts for this new language, etcetera. I do not think the world needs yet another format to write down sounds.

ivan_gammel 7y ago

They had two alphabets which were familiar to them but didn’t fit and should be adjusted, probably repurposing some letters for different sounds. Any other alphabet was completely foreign to their culture, would probably require some adjustments too and thus would not bring any benefits besides some existing fonts. As languages would evolve, it would create an incompatible fork anyway. Own alphabet brings 100% compatibility, cultural heritage and reduced cognitive load when learning new languages (ask English speakers how they figure out how Z, S or V should be pronounced in German).

Smithalicious 7y ago
>100% compatibility Again, this could just as well have been achieved by just adapting a different alphabet, so this is not really a benefit to inventing your own alphabet >cultural heritage That depends on what you take "cultural heritage" to mean. I don't think inventing something new from scratch actually brings any kind of heritage. It looks like a case of "we just need to have something unique because, uhh, reasons". >reduced cognitive load when learning new languages I'm not convinced this is true. You're trading not having to switch mindsets about the sounds when switching languages against not having general familiarity with the alphabet, and I'm not sure which has a bigger impact on cognitive load. I also don't think either of those really has a big impact; the fact that a different language just has different sounds seems to be the main cause of cognitive load here. All in all I think these are some pretty myopic benefits at best, and do not justify the gradeoff of having to add yet more stuff to unicode, make fonts for this new language, etcetera. I do not think the world needs yet another format to write down sounds.