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Syllabaries and logographies are no less "advanced" than alphabets. Plus unnecessarily ableist language aside, I'd expect people here of all places to understa

Syllabaries and logographies are no less "advanced" than alphabets. Plus unnecessarily ableist language aside, I'd expect people here of all places to understand that newer does not inherently equal better. You'll have to come up with a more sensible criticism of icons than "pictography is 5000 years old" :-)

WalterBright 6y ago
> You'll have to come up with a more sensible criticism of icons than "pictography is 5000 years old" :-) I have on HN several times. To sum up: 1. dictionary is impossible 2. cannot keyboard it. forget about typewriters 3. impracticality of using pictures to represent verbs, adjectives, etc., anything but nouns with visual manifestations. (not that people don't try) 4. no past tense, no future tense 5. there are a million English words. Imagine a million icons. (You can't.) 6. copyright law means everyone invents their own unique icons 7. the overwhelming number of icons need a cheat sheet, because the picture isn't obvious 8. the graphic for icons tends to get simplified over the years (where have we seen that before?) 9. takes more paper to write the same text 10. slow to draw them by hand 11. hopelessness of OCR 12. takes years longer to learn than an alphabet To sum up, please repost your comment using icons only.
- guerrilla 6y ago
  A bunch of these depend on current technology being catered to alphabets and then #1 and #4 aren't even true for many real languages. What does #6 have to do with which ones are sufficient for communicating? #8 all languages change in many ways, how is that an argument against any of them?
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    What pictures would you select to make this sentence understandable by people who have not seen your icons before: Tomorrow I am going to atone for my sins. I'm also looking at the home screen of my iPhone, created by the world leader in icon promulgation. Every one has words under it saying what it is. After all, who would connect a 5 pointed star with "iTunes Store"? How about a squiggly line with "Stocks"? How about 3 red stripes with "News"? Nobody. And Apple knows it. The only icon that makes sense is a black square with "Uber" written on it.
- wl 6y ago
  > dictionary is impossible I've got a Middle Egyptian dictionary in front of me right now. > cannot keyboard it. Manuel de Codage. I also use input methods for cuneiform. For a more modern example of this kind of thing, look at CJK input methods. > impracticality of using pictures to represent verbs, adjectives, etc., anything but nouns with visual manifestations. (not that people don't try) If you represent your language in pictures rather than try to make a special picture language, it is not that difficult. > no past tense, no future tense This is a feature of languages, not anything to do with the script. Look up Tense-Aspect-Mood if you are really interested. For what it's worth, English has no future tense, but that has nothing to do with the Latin alphabet. It also doesn't prevent us from talking about actions in the future. > there are a million English words. Imagine a million icons. (You can't.) You can combine icons to form words. > copyright law means everyone invents their own unique icons I've read Egyptian hieroglyphic texts spanning two millennium. You get used to variation as the rule. > the graphic for icons tends to get simplified over the years (where have we seen that before?) Wasn't the case with Egyptian hieroglyphs, although arguably Hieratic exhibits this behavior. > takes more paper to write the same text In practice, a text in Egyptian hieroglyphs and its English translation are more or less the same length. > hopelessness of OCR It's harder, sure, but people are working on it. > slow to draw them by hand > takes years longer to learn than an alphabet I'll give you those.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    I know little about Egyptian, but as I understand it it evolved to be phonetic, and much of our alphabet consists of highly simplified Egyptian hieroglyphs. This I learned from a Nova show last year. As for a dictionary, google says there are 700 Egyptian hieroglyphs. That's small enough that one can realistically look up one in the dictionary by exhaustive search. That doesn't work for English with a million words, and having no sort order is what I meant about no dictionary. Any sort order for a picture of a duck and a picture of a house is going to be arbitrary. For English, one memorizes the (arbitrary) sort order of 26 letters, and then the rest requires no additional learning. > You can combine icons to form words. Indeed, and that is a crucial step along the way from a picture language to a phonetic alphabet! > It also doesn't prevent us from talking about actions in the future. What picture represents tomorrow? > You get used to variation as the rule. Apple will sue you if it looks anything like a trash can, not just a variation. Amusingly, many apps on the iphone use the word "delete". The icon empire is showing cracks!
WalterBright 6y ago
> Syllabaries and logographies are no less "advanced" than alphabets. They're certainly much more complicated. But more advanced? That's not clear to me.

WalterBright 6y ago

> You'll have to come up with a more sensible criticism of icons than "pictography is 5000 years old" :-) I have on HN several times. To sum up: 1. dictionary is impossible 2. cannot keyboard it. forget about typewriters 3. impracticality of using pictures to represent verbs, adjectives, etc., anything but nouns with visual manifestations. (not that people don't try) 4. no past tense, no future tense 5. there are a million English words. Imagine a million icons. (You can't.) 6. copyright law means everyone invents their own unique icons 7. the overwhelming number of icons need a cheat sheet, because the picture isn't obvious 8. the graphic for icons tends to get simplified over the years (where have we seen that before?) 9. takes more paper to write the same text 10. slow to draw them by hand 11. hopelessness of OCR 12. takes years longer to learn than an alphabet To sum up, please repost your comment using icons only.

guerrilla 6y ago
A bunch of these depend on current technology being catered to alphabets and then #1 and #4 aren't even true for many real languages. What does #6 have to do with which ones are sufficient for communicating? #8 all languages change in many ways, how is that an argument against any of them?
- WalterBright 6y ago
  What pictures would you select to make this sentence understandable by people who have not seen your icons before: Tomorrow I am going to atone for my sins. I'm also looking at the home screen of my iPhone, created by the world leader in icon promulgation. Every one has words under it saying what it is. After all, who would connect a 5 pointed star with "iTunes Store"? How about a squiggly line with "Stocks"? How about 3 red stripes with "News"? Nobody. And Apple knows it. The only icon that makes sense is a black square with "Uber" written on it.
wl 6y ago
> dictionary is impossible I've got a Middle Egyptian dictionary in front of me right now. > cannot keyboard it. Manuel de Codage. I also use input methods for cuneiform. For a more modern example of this kind of thing, look at CJK input methods. > impracticality of using pictures to represent verbs, adjectives, etc., anything but nouns with visual manifestations. (not that people don't try) If you represent your language in pictures rather than try to make a special picture language, it is not that difficult. > no past tense, no future tense This is a feature of languages, not anything to do with the script. Look up Tense-Aspect-Mood if you are really interested. For what it's worth, English has no future tense, but that has nothing to do with the Latin alphabet. It also doesn't prevent us from talking about actions in the future. > there are a million English words. Imagine a million icons. (You can't.) You can combine icons to form words. > copyright law means everyone invents their own unique icons I've read Egyptian hieroglyphic texts spanning two millennium. You get used to variation as the rule. > the graphic for icons tends to get simplified over the years (where have we seen that before?) Wasn't the case with Egyptian hieroglyphs, although arguably Hieratic exhibits this behavior. > takes more paper to write the same text In practice, a text in Egyptian hieroglyphs and its English translation are more or less the same length. > hopelessness of OCR It's harder, sure, but people are working on it. > slow to draw them by hand > takes years longer to learn than an alphabet I'll give you those.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  I know little about Egyptian, but as I understand it it evolved to be phonetic, and much of our alphabet consists of highly simplified Egyptian hieroglyphs. This I learned from a Nova show last year. As for a dictionary, google says there are 700 Egyptian hieroglyphs. That's small enough that one can realistically look up one in the dictionary by exhaustive search. That doesn't work for English with a million words, and having no sort order is what I meant about no dictionary. Any sort order for a picture of a duck and a picture of a house is going to be arbitrary. For English, one memorizes the (arbitrary) sort order of 26 letters, and then the rest requires no additional learning. > You can combine icons to form words. Indeed, and that is a crucial step along the way from a picture language to a phonetic alphabet! > It also doesn't prevent us from talking about actions in the future. What picture represents tomorrow? > You get used to variation as the rule. Apple will sue you if it looks anything like a trash can, not just a variation. Amusingly, many apps on the iphone use the word "delete". The icon empire is showing cracks!

WalterBright 6y ago

> Syllabaries and logographies are no less "advanced" than alphabets. They're certainly much more complicated. But more advanced? That's not clear to me.