Richard Cook <rscook at socrates dot berkeley dot edu> wrote: > Script complexity is not so easily quantified. Has anyone tried to > sort scripts by complexity? In terms of the present discussion, Han > would be viewed as a simple script, and yet it is "simple" only in > terms of the script model in which ideographs are the smallest unit. > In a stroke-based Han script model, Han is at least as complex as any.
One interesting exercise, for someone with enough spare time, is to look through the invented scripts in the ConScript Unicode Registry [1] and on Simon Ager's "Omniglot" site [2, 3] and see how many would qualify as "complex" scripts if encoded in Unicode. Actually quite a few of them are, some because of contextual forms and others because of complex positioning behavior. It might be interesting to ponder how many of these scripts were intentionally made complex, by inventors who understand the concept of "complex scripts" and knew what they were doing. Again, for someone with plenty of pondering time. [1] http://www.evertype.com/standards/csur/ [2] http://www.omniglot.com/writing/alternative.htm [3] http://www.omniglot.com/writing/conscripts.htm -Doug Ewell Fullerton, California http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
