Re: The History of the Alphabet (long)

CurtAdams@aol.com
Tue, 7 Oct 1997 01:51:00 -0400 (EDT)


In a message dated 10/6/97 4:29:50 PM, phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu wrote:

(re semetic written language)

>So someone decided that they need only write down the
>consonants, leaving off tense and number inflections, perhaps similar to
>the way we used to leave out punctuation. The article insists that this
>is a more usable system than it seems. I can only defer to their more
>informed judgement

Thnk bt t. ltgh t's dffclt, y cn fgr t wht smthng sys wtht vwls.

It varies by language, of course. I imagine those semetic languages were
better for no-vowel than English. Chinese, OTOH, would be very tough.