Re:When Chinese children forget how to write
by thaumasiotes on Thursday August 28, 2014 @07:07PM
(#8240225)
> When I look at Hangul, I see a rather simple underlying set of principles. It seems to logically build up. Compared to say, the Cherokee one, which, by looking at it for a minute, doesn't appear to have any structure. It seems like they're more-or-less random symbols. Maybe there is some deeper design there but it isn't apparent at a quick glance.
It's the other way around; Hangul is also composed of more-or-less random symbols with no deeper design. Hangul is an alphabetic system much like Spanish, except that the letters are arranged into two-dimensional square syllables, and the squares then placed in a line, instead of the letters being arranged into a one-dimensional line directly. That's just an artistic choice.
By designed, I mean "if modern scientists and engineers designed" versus more primitive people sort of making stuff up and folks adding on. With an explicit goal for efficiency; not aiming to necessarily "look nice".
When I look at Hangul, I see a rather simple underlying set of principles. It seems to logically build up. Compared to say, the Cherokee one, which, by looking at it for a minute, doesn't appear to have any structure. It seems like they're more-or-less random symbols. Maybe there is some deeper design there but it isn't apparent at a quick glance.
But is Hangul's choice of symbols the best representation for human minds for reading? And for writing or algorithmically dealing with characters?