h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Writing Systems - A533062
Author: Gnomon - U151503

I could probably spend the rest of my life tweaking this, but since we're short of entries in Peer Review I've decided to submit it. What do people think? Is it any good without pictures of all the alphabets?

I think it is, but I did start to get a bit lost around Syllabaries. I'm wondering whether it might be better to have more than one entry, so we can take it in smaller chunks?

Or maybe other people won't find it so hard to concentrate without pictures.

It's 2,708 words at the moment. That's not amazingly long.

I like it! - very educational.

Did you want to mention the confusing sounds attached to the Chinese use of X (sh) and Q (ch)?

Icy

Now, how did I know this was a Gnomon from the title?

Very good treatment. The only comment I'd make is that you might want to mention the Georgian alphabet (mkhedruli) as a counterpoint to Cyrillic as it's used throughout the Caucasus. And it's also exquisitely beautiful.

I think more pictures would help, but aren't essential. I suppose they could always be added later.

I did wonder whether it might be worth to explain the origin of the word alphabet. I'm sure you know it, so I won't bother posting it.

Also, I would mention that Hebrew is also written from right to left. It seems a bit strange that you say so for Arabic but then immediately talk about Hebrew without mentioning it.

Anyway, great entry as ever.

Absolutely great entry, Gnomon. I like the Ciryllic and Greek letters not too far apart so that you can actually see the similarities. I've done Russian in school but not Greek, so I never knew the connection.
There are a few entries you could link to, yours about hieroglyphs comes to mind.

I can see that one of the things that might have confused Mina is the use of "symbol" and "syllable" many times in a short space. I'll have to think of some other way of saying it.

Gee, the only possible gap I noticed is that Coptic probably falls into this list somewhere.

It, of course, is a colloquial Egyptian language, but is somewhat specific to the Christian Coptic Orthodox Church Of Egypt.

I believe that it has been used to try and reconstruct the actual sound of some of the ancient tongues.

Regards,

I think it was because I was so busy trying to imagine all the sounds that you were mentioning that I exhausted myself! If everyone else is fine with the amount, no problem. I'll just have to accept I'm a words person, not a letters person.

A good addition to the guide, regardless.

I changed "symbol" to "letter" in that section on Indian writing to try and get away from the three words "symbol", "syllable" and "system", all starting with "sy".

Coptic is really an ancient writing system rather than a current one. I haven't room for the hundreds of ancient systems. And the Coptic alphabet is really just Greek with a few extra letters, so I don't think it deserves a separate section.

But of course, you're right. I wasn't expecting that a full analysis of the Coptic language would be added.

It occurred to me that some of the ancient tongues might be grouped with the modern version acting as an aggregate, but I know that I am not up to the task and have no reason to expect that the idea would add any real value to this fine piece of researching.

As I said, it was the only thing that I could even think of that might represent an addition. I like it just the way it is!

It would be lovely to add Georgian, as someone sugggested, but I think it would add little without an example of this beautiful rounded script, so it is probably better left out.

Can't you get Georgian into an HTML page? Some people manage it, but DNA won't let me.

I'm not even convinced that the Russian will display correctly for everyone.

It would be great to have a picture for each, like your Phonecian picture, but I don't know if the Eds would agree to that.

We could attempt to throw our weight around on the matter.

Not sure if it's necessary though. It would be nice to see every type of writing, but the entry is really about the characteristics of the alphabet.

Hebrew has symbols for the vowels but rarely uses them - that's not the same as not having them, is it?

I've added examples of Hebrew and Devanagari to this entry, but I don't know whether people will be able to see them. They may be displayed as lines of squares.

It's looking good in IE 6.0

Not even Mozilla fails here.