2015. Why do some new scripts fail and others succeed?

Why do some new scripts fail and others succeed?

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Sayaboury alphabet, 1950s

PahawhHmong syllabary, 1959-1971

Khomalphasyllabary, 1924

Eskaya alphasyllabary, ca. 1920-1937

UrupIban Dunging syllabary, ca. 1947-1952

Caroline Islands syllabary, 1907-1909

Ottomaung alphabet, ca. 1988-1998

Avoiuli alphabet, 1980s

Mama script, ca. 1920s—1930s [Easter Island]

Sinsuwat script?

Dinagat Island script?

Aksara Minang?

Successful Asia-Pacific script invention in the 20th century

Wolof alphabet, 1961

Masaba syllabary, 1930

Loma syllabary, 1930s

Gola alphabet, ca. 1960s

Kikakui syllabary, 1921

Vai syllabary, 1833

Kpelle syllabary, 1930s

BassahVah alphabet, 1920s

Bété syllabary, 1956

N’ko alphabet, 1949

Medefaidrin alphabet, 1931

Bamumsyllabary, 1896-1910

Bagamsyllabary, ca. 1917

Mandombe alphabet, 1978

Succesful West African script invention in the 20th century

Masaba, 1930

Kpelle syllabary, early 1930s

Medefaidrin, 1931

Bété syllabary, 1956










Sinsuwat script?


Aksara Minang?

Asia-Pacific script invention in the 20th century

Caroline Islands script

Khom

Avoiuli










Sinsuwat script?


Aksara Minang?

Successful Asia-Pacific script invention in the 20th century

An evolutionary model of success and failure

• success = transmission (reproduction)

va new script is successful if it is used by more than one person and transmitted to more than one generation (25 years)

vfailure = script is limited to one scribe or one generation

‘Common sense’ assumptions about successful scripts

• easy to learn• substantially feature-based (for non-ideographic

systems)• satisfy an ordinary communicative need (letter

writing, accounts etc)• be available to most members of a community










Sinsuwat script?


Aksara Minang?

Easy to learn










Sinsuwat script?


Aksara Minang?

Substantially feature-based










Sinsuwat script?


Aksara Minang?

Ordinary communicative need










Sinsuwat script?


Aksara Minang?

Accessible to most members of a community

Caroline Islands syllabary

Better predictors of successful scripts

• institutional support (local religious authorities, political elites)

• restricted usage (restricted domains, transmission, etc)

• satisfies an indexical/symbolic communicative need (above an ordinary communicative need)










Sinsuwat script?


Aksara Minang?

Institutional support










Sinsuwat script?


Aksara Minang?

Restricted usage










Sinsuwat script?


Aksara Minang?

Indexical communicative need

Abakano Eskaya

The Eskaya writing system is unique among the world’s scripts for the extent to which it combines various modes of sound and language representation. I have shown that the Eskaya system has alphabetic, alphasyllabic and strictly syllabic features with an inconsistent system of consonant diacritics and more than fifty percent redundancy in its recorded syllable characters, including thirty-seven characters for representing phonotactic impossibilities. [...] graphic contrasts are overdetermined with no clear tendency towards a stereotyped orientation of strokes and loops. Orthographic variation is also apparent in how individual scribes choose to segment words into syllables, consonants and vowels: one word may have a number of acceptable spellings. Eskaya alphabetic letters have a cypher-like quality as if they were designed for direct transliteration (or encryption) of Spanish, or Hispanic orthographies of Visayan. Arguably, although not unequivocally, the system shows a degree of logography (and perhaps pictography and ideography) in the Abidiha, or primary ‘alphabet’. Less ambiguously ideographic, the numeral set is decimal and can even be used for performing equations but appears to include deliberately obfuscatory or misleading elements from the perspective of a scribe who has prior literacy in a Hindu-Arabic numeral system. This obfuscation, detected in the apparent incongruence between certain number shapes, their semantics and their phonetic realizations, suggests the possibility of deliberate opacity in other aspects of the writing system. One such area is the Eskaya system of consonant pseudo-diacritics: one-off graphic elements that perform the function of differentiation only, with no combinatoric value. [...] the script exhibits an influence from the Roman alphabet, while the writing system displays Hispanic alphabetic elements as well as inherent vowels reminiscent of indigenous scripts of the Philippines and Indonesia [...]. In summary, I propose that the Eskaya writing system is the least systematic writing system on record and in regular use today.

Eskaya

• institutional support

• restricted usage • satisfies an

indexical/symbolic communicative need

Abakano

✔️ 𐄂✔️ 𐄂✔️ ?

Eskaya

• easy to learn

• feature-based• ordinary

communication• available to

majority

Abakano

𐄂 ✔️

𐄂 ✔️/?

𐄂 𐄂𐄂 ✔️

2015. Why do some new scripts fail and others succeed?

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