Lacking ascenders?
An acquaintance and I were recently discussing language reform (Pitman, Deseret, Shavian, Quickscript, etc.) He told me that the lack of ascenders and descenders alone is enough to damn any writing system to failure. But aren’t there examples of existing (or once existing) writing systems that disprove this notion. For example, Chinese seems to lack these features (ascenders and descenders).
10.Oct.2007 1.05pm
I think for this discussion you need to differentiate between alphabetic writing systems (e.g., Latin) and logographic (chinese) writing systems.
See this page:
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/definition.htm
or the book “The world’s Writing Systems”, by Daniels and Bright.
10.Oct.2007 1.44pm
I don’t think a lack of ascenders/descenders has anything to do with the success of a writing system. The latin alphabet started out as all majuscules and lived through textura, seems to be doing OK.
Carolingian miniscules may have given it a kick in the pants but mostly that was just to expedite handwriting.
10.Oct.2007 3.34pm
>He told me that the lack of ascenders and descenders alone is enough to damn any writing system to failure.
LOL! But writing systems like Elvish are roaring successes ;-)
10.Oct.2007 6.38pm
Elvish (Tolkien’s Tengwar) has ascenders and descenders.