[86054] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: Klingon orthography
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (MorphemeAddict@wmconnect.com)
Sat Jun 27 16:02:46 2009
From: MorphemeAddict@wmconnect.com
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 15:59:55 EDT
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
In a message dated 6/27/2009 15:11:42 Eastern Daylight Time,
doq@embarqmail.com writes:
> Look at Cherokee. Sequoia came up with a hand-written script mostly
> made of loops, imitating cursive English which he had looked at, but
> couldn't read, and he took it to a typesetter and asked if he could
> print this. The typesetter ignored what Sequoia did, except to reach
> in his box and grab 89 characters (later dropping one, since two of
> them were eventually discovered to be identical in sound) and randomly
> assign them to each letter of the syllabary and those arbitrary
> characters (normal roman characters set sometimes at unconventional
> orientations) are now the official Cherokee alphabet.
>
Of the 85 symbols in the Cherokee syllabary, 22 (D W W R L 4 T H h C A Z V
K J M S i E R P B) look like regular English letters (yes, there are two
versions of W and two of K). Two others look like upside down versions of P
and L. No other orientation of regular English letters is used. That leaves
63 symbols that are either completely different or markedly different from
regular English letters. None of those 63 would have been found in any
typesetter's type box.
So, as nice as this story is, I don't think it's true.
lay'tel SIvten
