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> 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 f
by 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 agoI 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>> 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. I was careful in saying "more paper", not longer. The hieroglyphs take up more vertical space. While in Japan, I noticed a book written in Japanese characters was significantly larger than the same book written in Romanji. I was surprised, having assumed that the more information-dense Japanese characters would implicitly take less space.