On Tue, 16 Jan 2001 22:01:37 -0500 (EST), Steve <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tue, 16 Jan 2001, Samuel W. Heywood wrote: >> Do the Navajo have their own written alphabetic characters and symbols, >> or do they just "transliterate" their spoken language into phonetic >> spellings and symbols using the white man's character set? >> If they do not have their very own alphabet, and one that is sufficient >> for transcribing almost all spoken communications, then they do not have >> a written language. > Interesting reasoning there, Sam. So, according to your > definition, even English doesn't qualify as a written language > since its alphabet was simply adapted and modified from pre-existing > ones. > In that case, the only true written language I can think of > off-hand (one that had its own alphabet invented for it) is > Cherokee. Similarly, your reasoning is perfectly agreeable with mine on this point. Many of the aboriginal inhabitants of Great Britain had written languages such as Gaelic and Celtic. These languages in their original form have their own distinctive alphabets. Many centuries after the Roman conquest of Britain, English started to evolve and take form. For writing, the same character set used by the Roman conquerors was adopted. Despite the ornate and stylistic flourishes of the so-called "Old English" and "Middle English" characters, the character set can be easily recognized and identified as being basically the same as the Roman characters, except for just a couple of symbols. After English began to be spoken, it started appearing in writing simply as transliterated phonetic transcription using Roman characters. Therefore, you are perfectly correct in saying that English is not a written language in the true sense of the term. Neither are most other modern European languages to be considered written languages. The only true written languages are those developed by a people before a time when they fell under foreign influences. Under this definition there are very few languages that can qualify as written languages. Sam -- This mail sent by Arachne, www graphical browser for DOS -- Visit the Arachne DOS Browser Home Page, http://home.arachne.cz
