AHC: Make Pictographic Writing Systems The Norm
- Thread starter Rishi
- Start date
Do signs not count. You can go around any airport in any nation and see these symbols and know what they are.
There are no true "pictographic" written languages anywhere, and none that are purely logograpgic or ideographic (one symbol represents one word or idea). All "ideographic" written languages use at least some phonetic or syllabic elements based on a spoken language to clarify or elaborate meaning.
That said, to create a modern international written language based on solely conventional symbols such as those given, as well as other existing symbols based on science, mathematics, etc is possible. However this would at best be a very limited use language, employed only in places where people for all over the world congregate - such as the airport examples you provide. Hardly something you could write literature or poetry in, which one can do with a true written language.
That said, to create a modern international written language based on solely conventional symbols such as those given, as well as other existing symbols based on science, mathematics, etc is possible. However this would at best be a very limited use language, employed only in places where people for all over the world congregate - such as the airport examples you provide. Hardly something you could write literature or poetry in, which one can do with a true written language.
jahenders
Banned
Two divergent possibilities here:
1) Egypt is more successful at conquering, avoiding conquest, and spreading their culture abroad so that their language is adopted by others. Egyptian hieroglyphics would likely have to evolve to form a more complete language and move away from their religious/mystical roots.
2) Establish earlier/more frequent interaction between the west and China and have a stronger China in these interactions such that Chinese pictographs are adopted by others. Perhaps a more sustained mongol supremacy could help.
1) Egypt is more successful at conquering, avoiding conquest, and spreading their culture abroad so that their language is adopted by others. Egyptian hieroglyphics would likely have to evolve to form a more complete language and move away from their religious/mystical roots.
2) Establish earlier/more frequent interaction between the west and China and have a stronger China in these interactions such that Chinese pictographs are adopted by others. Perhaps a more sustained mongol supremacy could help.
A proper alphabet is superior in almost every way. Which is why most of the planet uses a writing system descended from one alphabet.
Again, the OP is about pictographs, not logographs. And, as noted, alphabetic or syllabic systems are simply far superior to other systems.
I am genuinely not aware of any pictographic system I would consider a complete script.
Personally I think a more interesting (and possibly plausible) script challenge would be Hangul-like scripts dominating.
I mean, Hangul's cool. It's like a syllabary, but the syllable glyphs are constructed out of phoneme glyphs! And it's featural!
Do you mean this?I definitely remember a website for someone's pictographic language experiment, which is supposed to be based on Chinese syntax. Does anyone know that website? I can't remember it anymore
Personally I think a more interesting (and possibly plausible) script challenge would be Hangul-like scripts dominating.
I mean, Hangul's cool. It's like a syllabary, but the syllable glyphs are constructed out of phoneme glyphs! And it's featural!
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Egypt becoming more successful won't do anything about the use of Hieratic and succeeding writing systems that certainly were not hieroglyphs if you even call those pictographs. And they'd have no reason to abandon more efficient systems even if they did preserve the ancient glyphs. And as has been pointed out, Chinese is logographic, and for the record it was spread quite a bit.
The most advanced people I can think of that relied purely on pictographic writing were the Aztecs, and Aztec world domination isn't terribly likely. Even if you have some disaster in the Old World, Mayan logo-syllabic writing is just so much more efficient and would likely catch on.
EDIT: Actually, even Aztec writing isn't purely pictographic for that matter.