[sw-l] SW system type... alphabetic vs. others (pictographic, ideographic, logographic)

Tomáš Klapka Tomas.Klapka at RUCE.CZ
Tue Jun 21 11:30:47 UTC 2005


Hi, I have a question about type of SW writing system.

People always tell me that it is pictographic, ideographic or ...

I think it is alphabetic, because there is no pictogram, logogram,
ideogram for a morpheme.
Each morpheme (I mean sign in SW) is compounded of phonetic (cheretic)
symbols standardized in IMWA (and IMWA is just the alphabet). Those
symbols don't have meanings. So do phonems.

/
Sometimes there is more phonems in a symbol, but it still has no meaning.
It is simillar as for example in czech letter 'á' (latin letter a with
Acute) which represents long vowel 'a'.
So there is the sound quality (written as latin letter A) and sound
duration (writen by Acute) - two phonems in a letter.
But the letter has no meaning itself. It makes the meaning if it is
component of a morpheme:

czech word "ráda" - is glad, (feminine, verb)
czech word "rada" - advice, convocation, council, counsellor, tip (noun)
/

So it must be alphabetic.
Is it right?

Tomas



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