soposa "face"; detailed
Kinds of Phonetic Picture - Writings
Content: Three main classes: Syllable writing Letter writing Position writing Mixed writing Comparing evaluation Other classification: by elements of signs
One may classify writings - also phonetic picture-writings - by the
proportion "number of signs : number of sounds", yielding three main classes:
| 1) There are much more signs than sounds: | syllable writing | (proportion n:1) | |
| 2) There are as many signs like sounds: | letter writing | (proportion 1:1) | |
| 3) There are much less signs than sounds: | position writing | (proportion 1:n) |
An example: it is based on the following phonetical system:
4 vowels: i e a o
4 humming consonants: n m l v
4 not humming cons.: s f t p
All syllables have the structure "consonant + vowel", e.g. "si", "ti", "ta".
So there are only 8*4 = 32 syllables. Examples of words: ti, sino, pivili,
sipetafo. Any possible series of syllables can be spoken easily. Now to
every syllable is assigned a sign, out of which ideograms are composed,
with writing direction from bottom to top. Example:
|
| soposa "face"; detailed |
Example: the simple phonetic picture-writing with only 12 letters, well
described in the main article:
Example of a word:
|
| ela "face"; detailed: |
A position writing has much less signs than sounds. Is it possible to construct
a phonetic picture-writing with these few signs? Yes, in 2 ways:
1) With the Point writing with 7 signs
a sign is read as a consonant or a vowel, depending on it's position
2) The same is true for the bar writing with only 4 signs (bars).
With it, ideograms are composed of signs not in a linear, but a 2-dimensional way.
Example: This ideogram is composed matrix - like out of 2 * 4, that
is 8 signs (in an unvisible square raster):
|
7 8
5 6
3 4
1 2
|
S i g n Pronunciation
consonant Vowel
\ p u
/ t o
| l e
- m a
The selection of sounds and their assignment to signs in this table are not optimal, but done so for easy extension (see the extended versions in the article Some bar writings). The above simple bar writing does not utilize a great part of the sounds a man can speak, and it does not make possible good ideograms. Enormous Enhancement is possible by:
- Using more signs: . [point] and / or o [curl]
- Allowing spaces (empty signs) in a row (important!)
- Allowing more than 2 signs in a row (important!)
The following examples show, what nice ideograms one can form with
4 signs only, if more than 2 signs per line and spaces are possible
(for better understanding, the basic screen is also shown).
But generally a position writing is much more unpracticable than a letter
or syllable writing, because of the mostly longer words and the
more complicated procedure. But it also has advantages, for example
the unlimited size of ideograms (breadth and height), if more than
2 signs per line are allowed.
Also mixed forms of the 3 main classes of writings are possible:
Position-writing read syllable-wise
If you learn by heart all combinations of 2 signs (incl. the space) of the above
position-writing, one might regard them as syllable signs, pronounced as consonant + vowel.
(There are 2 versions of pronunciation, depending on wether the pair of signs
is at the beginning of a row or not). Each row then consists of one or more syllable signs.
Diphtong writing
Letter writing, at which also pairs of vowels and pairs of consonants
(vocalic and consonantic diphtongs) have their own signs.
Example:: The 12 signs of the letter writing above are to few to form
good ideograms or any idea. Thus we extend the phonetical base by the diphtongs
ei, ai, oi, ui, au and the consonant-pairs ts, ks, ps, st, pl, pr, kv
and assign them own signs. Now we have the double number of signs.
The sign au (for example) is not the same than the series of signs a-u .
To discern them acoustically, the latter is spoken as ahu , because the filling consonant h
is inserted. (Also ng might be used as filling consonant. The sound j (like y in yes)
cannot be used furthermore, for the acoustical difference between (for example) a-j-a
and ai-j-a is too small).
The series of vowels a-a now is spoken as aha , the series of signs a-o-a as ahoha .
But the series of signs ei, ai, oi, ui + vowel / diphtong (e.g. ai-a, ai-ai )
and the series of signs au-a can be spoken without a filling consonant as aia, aiai, aua etc.,
which is easier and shorter to pronounce.
The sign ts is not the same than the series of signs t-s.
The series of signs ts-pr (2 signs) is pronounced as tsipri,
but the series of signs t-s-p-r (4 signs) as tisipiri .
(The filling vowel i is inserted after each consonantic sign without a vowel sign after it.
Also i should be spoken at the beginning of a word before signs for
'unspeakable' consonant groups like nt, mp, lp, if these have own signs).
Evaluation: More signs make possible better ideograms.
Nice diphtongs let the language sound nicer.
But many consonantic diphtongs in words let the language sound more heavy
and less musical.
A diphtong writing is recommendable, if a letter writing had too less signs and
a syllable writing too many.
One can increase the number of signs by using own signs for dissylabic diphtongs / triphtongs
like ie, ia, io, iai, ioi, iau ... and for groups of 3 consonants.
Letter wrting + syllable writing:
If a letter writing had too less signs and a syllable writing too many,
one may define a mixed form: some single sounds are written by own signs,
but also some syllables. That is such syllables, where either the
consonant or the vowel has no own letter.
Examples: The syllables ri, re, ra, ro are written by own signs,
the sound r has no letter (otherwise one could write the syllable ro (for example)
also by the letters r-o, thus the writing was not definite).
Or the syllables se, fe, te, ke ... are written by own signs,
the sound e has no letter. A filling consonant (j like the y in yes) and a
filling vowel (i) are necessary like with a letter picture-writing to make series of
vowels and series of consonants speakable.
To keep the words (ideograms) acoustically short, seldom used signs should be pronounced as a syllable,
often used signs as a single sound. Also if a consonantic sign mostly is followed by
another one (so a filling vowel is to be spoken) this first sign should be pronunced as a syllable.
Pairs-of-syllables writing:
A syllable writing at which with each consonant there are only 2 syllable signs.
The vowels not used in these syllable signs have own letters.
An example with this phonetic base:
9 consonants: t,k,p, l,n,m, s,∫,f 5 vowels: i,u, e,a,o
All 18 syllables "consonant + i" and "consonant + u" (ti,ki,pi ... tu,ku,pu ...) have own signs.
Also the vowels e, a, o have own letters.
A word consisting of the syllable signs si-pi-tu is spoken as sipitu ,
a word consisting of the signs ti-a-ti as tiati.
But the sequence of the signs tu-a is spoken as ta,
because an u before a vowel sign is not spoken. To shorten the word
acoustically and to avoid the rather ugly diphtongs ue, ua, uo.
More examples: The sequence of the signs tu-a-tu is spoken as tatu,
ti-a-tu as tiatu, tu-a-pu-a as tapa, su-o-pi as sopi, su-e-fi as sefi.
The filling consonant j is still necessary between written vowel signs:
a-a is spoken as aja, ti-ti-a-a as titiaja, tu-a-a as taja.
But a special filling vowel between consonants is not necessary, because after a consonant
there is always spoken the vowel i or u or the vowel displacing the u.
We name this system of writing 'pairs-of-syllables writing', because
for each consonant there are 2 syllable signs beginning with this
consonant. That we use for an easy-to-learn assignement of signs to sounds:
- Signs narrowing on top get assigned the syllables ti, ki, pi,
the corresponding turned down signs (broadening on top)
get assigned the syllables tu, ku, pu
- Vertical lines (single or multiple), which are centered, get assigned
the spoken syllables lu, nu, mu, the corresponding signs shifted to the left
get assigned the syllables li, ni, mi
- So a syllable sign ending with -u always is formed by turning or shifting
a syllable sign ending with -i (exception: the signs mu / mi)
By si, ši, fi, su, šu, fu we can name another 6 signs.
Another way of sight: One could regard the above example also as a
letter + syllable -writing with 9 syllable signs ti, ki, pi ... , 9 consonant signs t, k, p ... ,
3 vowel signs e, a, o and the filling vowel u and the filling consonant j
Evaluation: If you want to have a phonetic picture-writing with about twice as
many signs than sounds, and no consonant combinations, you might choose this system.
Ease of Learning
- A syllable writing has many signs, which increases learning time.
- With a letter writing, signs can be learned quicker. But therefore,
it's necessary to learn the rule when to speak the filling sounds i/j
to make any combination of letters pronouncable.
- With position writings, this trend is intensified: The learning effort for
the signs themselves is even smaller, the effort to learn rules higher.
If you consider the signs of a writing as its hardware, the rules as its
software, one may say: The more effort is done with the one, the
less effort is necessary with the other, and vice versa.
Ease of beginning
Only with a syllable writing, beginning is as easy as you want: One may
give to a pupil 2 or 3 tiles with syllable signs and teach him their
pronunciation. Then he may combine these tiles at will and try to invent
or imitate ideograms. The pupil will be able to speak any new ideogram
correctly as series of the single syllables. With other kinds of
phonetic picture-writings, an ideogram is not always spoken as series
of the shown letters, because sometimes filling sounds are necessary
(with letter writing), or pronunciation of letters is changing (with
position writing).
Ease of beginning and ease of learning are highly important in social respect,
as all people should be able to write - also in developing
countries and in bad times. Also for this reason, a writing should be
as interesting as possible to attract pupils - phonetic picture-writing
here is outstanding.
Synchronism of language and writing
When using a letter writing, one can write down each spoken sound of
a dictation immediately after hearing. Using a syllable writing, a man or
maschine have to wait until the syllable is completed. So, with a letter
writing, language and writing are synchronized in smaller steps.
But another point of view may be more important:
Only with a syllable writing, language and writing are evenly synchronous.
As one can write signs, one after the other, without problems, one can
speak syllables (with appropriate structure, e.g. "consonant + vowel" )
one after the other without problems: The series of syllables "ti", "ta", "ti"
can be easily spoken as "titati".
With a letter picture-writing, the series of letters "ttat" would be
spoken as "titati" (using the filling sound i).
Obviously writing and language here are asynchronous.
Also the spoken syllable "ta" for example is not a smooth series
of the sounds t and a: if one would speak these sounds without sluring,
the result was an abrupt "t-a".
Visualizing and speed
If one hears a slowly spoken text of a phonetic picture-writing, one can
visualize it (imagine it written down) after some exercise. This is best
possible with a syllable writing: The synchronism of language and writing
and the representing of some sounds by only one sign make that easier.
With other kinds of phonetic picture - writings, visualizing is slower.
I know that by experience, but it also can be made plausible by a rule
of experimental psychology. The rule of Merkel (1885) says:
The reaction time of a person, asked to choose a certain thing out of
n things, increases logarithmical with n.
Measurements indicate about T = 200 + 180 * log n [msec]
Example: With a syllable writing with 8 consonants and 4 vowels, giving
32 syllables of structure "consonant + vowel", the reaction time per syllable is
= 200 + 180 * 5 = 1100 msec
(as dual logarithm of 32 = 5 respectly vice versa 2 5 = 32 )
With a letter writing with 12 letters, the corresponding reaction time for 2 letters
is = 2 * (200 + 180 * 3,6) = 1698 msec,
thus well 50 % more.
One might say, that reading a syllable writing is quicker because there
is a kind of parallel processing (minimally 2 sounds are read at the
same time), whereas reading a letter writing is completely serial.
But when reading words or texts, the reaction time per sign is smaller,
for words are recognized also by their overall outline.
Syllable signs as words
With a syllable writing, some or all signs may be words. Example:
This ideogram means 'hurrying man'. It is composed out of 3 syllable
signs, which, as words, mean "angle", "wave" and "point".
This fact, that single syllable signs already are words, has many advantages:
It makes it easier to learn the signs (especially if this artificial
language was the mother language), to read the signs
and especially to visualize: The above ideogram in fact is the series
of the forms "angle", "wave", "point"
Optical Quality and Word Length
Syllable writings have, even when based on simple phonetic system,
more signs than other kinds of writings. That's why they allow,
on principle, ideograms to be more expressive, more elegant,
more compact, quicker writable. But an ideogram must not become
acoustically too long, and thus it must contain less (say about the
half) syllable signs, than it could contain letter signs.
But some ideas seem to be expressed better with a set of simple signs,
but more signs per ideogram - then a letter writing was better.
Most flexible is 'drawing' things by bar writing, because of the
unlimited size of ideograms (besides in the simple version shown above)
and the composition of ideograms of small parts (which gives the
ideograms a special kind of beauty).
The whole question also depends on the vocabulary (for plants supposely
an other phonetic picture-writing is optimal than for physics),
and on the special writing.
The optical quality of a phonetic picture-writing only can be evaluated
if one knows a certain number of ideograms and sentences. Not ideograms specially selected
to demonstrate the quality of this special writing, better a basic set
of 350 words, evenly surveying all common themes.
The average acoustical word length is distinctly longer with bar
writings than with other kinds of writings.
Phonetics
All kinds of (well designed) phonetic picture-writings produce well
sounding, phonetically clear words. With syllable writings,
the syllable structure can be designed exactly: for example, allow
only syllables with structure "consonant + vowel" (acoustically very clear,
but may be too monotonous), or allow also syllables with structure
"consonant + diphthong" (examples: mei mai, moi).
Important: There should be a clear acoustic separation of words, and of sentences.
The normal (very short or missing) sound gap between spoken words,
and the accent (always at the beginning of a word, or always at the end),
perhaps are not sufficient, with fluid speaking,
to let a hearer decide, if for example "ti ta ki" or "ti taki" or
"tita ki" or "titaki" was spoken.
One can use not written particles (grammatical words) to indicate the
borders of words, columns and sentences. For this, a
syllable writing, with which each syllable, and so each word, begins with
a consonant and ends with a vowel, is especially advantagous: One may
use as particles before words single vowels, e.g. o, a, e . After these
vowels, any word, as beginning with a consonant, can be spoken fluidly.
The sentence "o tita a ki" for example can easily be spoken and can be
separated into words easily and definitely by a hearer.
And by a computer too. For analyzing such a sentence, extracting its
words, can be done in a purely formal, systematical way - because of
its clear phonetics. In opposite to this, in most 'natural' languages
word borders mostly cannot be recognized by acoustic means only -
a hearer often tries, after hearing a sentence and understanding it
partially, to reconstruct it according to a supposed sense. (Thats
the reason why a bad telefone line, allowing correct syllable
recognizing of only 10 % , allows correct sentence understanding
of 42 % - to a man only, not to a computer.
Details about these questions you find in the article
Phonetic systems for artificial languages
and in the descriptions of single syllable-, letter- and position writings.
Beauty, psyche
Optical and acoustic beauty of a writing / language are an important point
of view, but also depending on one's taste: Are simple, clear ideograms,
like made possible by a syllable writing, nicer than the ideograms of a
letter writing, which mostly are composed out of more lines?
Anyway, small ideograms are more practicable - easier to write, read and
remember.
In any case, on should consider the mental and spiritual aspect of sounds,
writings and ways to write - they are as less neutral in this respect,
as music or pictures are neutral in that sense.
Technical Effort
With a syllable writing, more compact ideograms are possible. Thus it is
quicker to read and write(important for taking notes) and needs a little
less space and writing material (this means in the Middle Ages: save
expensive paper; in the computer ages: more text on a screen).
When printing by types, for a syllable writing many kinds of types are
needed. (But most syllable signs, when turned up, represent another sign;
it's the same with 1-sound-letters: thus the number of necessary kinds
of types is decreased). But the length of a text is farly smaller with a
syllable writing, because the words contain less signs.
A keyboard with syllable keys would double the speed of typing, but it
seems to make sense only with a smaller number of syllables. But also
syllables can be entered as two or more single sounds - then the
keyboard can be as minimal as with a letter writing. But then not each
sign appears on a key, unfortunetaly.
Fitness for Computer
All kinds of phonetic picture-writings can be displayed on a screen without
problems. Once the signs are in a computer symbol table ??, ideograms
formed by them may be used for illustration also in texts in an other
language. They are easier to create (just type them) and use much less
computer memory than normal graphics.
The number of bits, which are necessary to store a text, is smallest if the
text is stored syllable-wise. This kind of storing is possible with any kind
of phonetic picture-writing, but only with a syllable writing it is completely synchronous
with the writing (1 spoken syllable = 1 sign on paper = 1 sign in the storage).
For automatic speech recognizing, becoming important in future, phonetic
clearness of a language is the deciding factor. All kinds of phonetic
picture-writings can be based on a very clear phonetic system, producing
a limited number of clear syllables, and phonetically very clear words.
Then, with all kinds, automatic speech recognition can be performed as
syllable-wise speech recognition, which is easier and more reliable than
other methods: because each syllable is a place of high sound intensity,
separated from other syllables by gaps of low sound intensity.
(The huge number of syllables in most 'natural' languages, except
Japanese, makes it impossible to use this kind of speech recognition
for these languages. Also syllable sluring like in "can-not" is a difficulty)
Also for logical text processing by EDP, generally artificial languages
without changing words are advantagous. Because then, when looking for
an idea, like "house", it's not necessary to look for related grammatical
forms too, like "houses".
Other classification: by elements of signs
Up to now, we classified phonetic picture-writings by the numerical proportion signs : sounds .
Instead of this, one might classify them by the optical elements of the writing:
- points
- straight lines (vertical, horizontal, diagonal)
- arcs
Writings with letters consisisting only out of points or only out of straight lines can be practible (examples above).
Writings consisting only out of arcs cannot picture well many things,
but writings with many arcs may be very elegant and aesthtetic.
Wrtings with points, straight lines and arcs can picture things most precisely.
update: 2013 - 1 - 14