SignWriting Terminology

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
March 21, 2006

Trevor Jenkins in the UK wrote:
> Not sure I agree with the notion that the Roman alphabet is a  
> sequence.
> Certainly not one in any mathematical sense. The ordering of the  
> symbols
> is purely arbitrary. We could just as easily remember the list as  
> A, Z, B,
> Y, ... M, L or any other random arrangement Z, Y, W, ... C, B, A.  The
> underlying meanings of the letters would not alter any. Easy to
> demonstrate by looking at Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, German, French,
> Greek, Russian, or a myriad languages using Roman symbols. There are
> additions to and deletions from the list. The more mathematically  
> compent
> can correct me but surely alphabet is a `bag' rather than a sequence
> defined over some order. Whereas there is (some deliberate) order  
> in the symbols of SignWriting.


Hello Trevor and Everyone!
Thanks for the message above..yes I think of an alphabet as a bag of  
symbols too, but it is Alphabetical Order that puts them in a  
specific order...

So the alphabet is a group of symbols, and the order is specified by  
the Alphabetical Order...

Anyway - enough with words!

I vote for writing signs and forgetting spoken languages for  
awhile...ha!

How are you Trevor? It is great to hear from you again? Are you  
programming at all?

Val ;-)