3 ms·
Ok, not a linguist, and probably couldn't hang with a bright undergrad in the subject, but I'm going to make a HN-inventing-things-from-first-principles conject
by buescher 3y ago
Ok, not a linguist, and probably couldn't hang with a bright undergrad in the subject, but I'm going to make a HN-inventing-things-from-first-principles conjecture: could there be a class of early scripts that are more a mnemonic device than a true writing system as we would undertand it today? I.e. without already knowing an enormous amount of context, no one could understand them? Is there a term for such a thing?
- hakfoo 3y agoShorthand scripts, as used by stenographers tome to mind; while there are common conventions I understand that many of them were extended by individual users to the point of being unreadable to anyone else.
- bradrn 3y agoAbsolutely this is possible! Such systems are called ‘proto-writing’ [0], and formed the precursor to almost every writing system known today (with the exception of ones such as Hangeul and Cherokee, which were basically created from scratch). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-writing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-writing