4 ms·
A letter is not a picture, at least not in the way we generally talk about pictures – it can be graphically manipulated and re-imagined in almost limitless ways
by dwb 6y ago
A letter is not a picture, at least not in the way we generally talk about pictures – it can be graphically manipulated and re-imagined in almost limitless ways and degrees and still perform its function. For most things-that-we-call-pictures, if you even made a relatively small adjustment to it, it would be a different picture.
- cycomanic 6y agoThat really depends on your language system. What you say is true for alphabetic systems, but quite different for logographic (e.g. Chinese) or pictographic systems.
- dwb 6y agoI don't think they're different enough to refute my point. You see Chinese characters in a great variety of typographic and handwritten styles, all able to be read by fluent people.
- jimbokun 6y agoIt is equally true of the Chinese character system. They have more "letters", but the point is still to unambiguously map a drawing of a character to a specific, discrete value.