In a message dated 2001-07-05 21:02:05 Pacific Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> A lot of the arguments against Klingon weren't specificially against
> Klingon; they were more against any fictional scripts in Unicode. The
> editorial response to comments from national groups, in the public archive
> of ISO 10646 stuff that you linked to at the start of this message,
included
> a complaint about Deseret from the German Standards body, in that it was
> inappropriate for being a fictional script. The response to that was
> bascially "Not really", IIRC. That does not bode well for lack of
contention
> for later scripts.
I do feel that there is a difference between:
(a) scripts like Shavian and Deseret, which were invented in a completely
serious vein, in an attempt to provide an alternative and presumably better
means of writing a real language, but didn't quite catch on; and
(b) truly "fictional" scripts like Klingon, Tengwar, Cirth, and such that
appear in novels or TV or movies and were never intended to be used seriously.
Both G.B. Shaw and the Mormons had genuine, if not universally shared,
reasons for wanting to abandon the Latin script for writing English in favor
of something "better." Shaw thought English literacy could be improved with
a more regular writing system to take the place of the convoluted Latin-based
orthography. (There are also rumors of darker motives, but the intent was
still for serious use.) Brigham Young wanted to isolate the Mormons from the
rest of the "corrupt" world of written English.
Compare the motivations behind these scripts to that of scripts that appear
in fictional literature and popular culture. Although nobody denies the
greatness of J.R.R. Tolkein as an author and scholar, it is extremely
unlikely that he intended the beautiful and carefully designed Tengwar and
Cirth scripts to be used by real humans to write real languages for use in
everyday life. Nor did Marc Okrand and other creators of "Star Trek" likely
intend the Klingon script and/or language to be used seriously, in the same
sense as Shaw or Young. This goes double for some of the other scripts
listed in the ConScript registry. Some appear *only* on the author's Web
pages, alongside elaborate descriptions of fantasy worlds.
I do believe that "original intent" has something to do with the legitimacy
of a script for consideration in Unicode.
Remember that all scripts, including Latin, Arabic, Han, Shavian, and
Klingon, were invented by humans. There are differences having to do with
how long ago, by whom, for what purpose, and how widely adopted, but there is
no such thing as a "natural" script against which "artificial" scripts may be
contrasted.
-Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California
