From: seeta@eng.wayne.edu (Seetamraju UdayaBhaskar Sarma)
Subject: ..... On bhaashaa, lipi | language, scripts ...
Summary: lipi, script, roman, devanaagari, pictographic, phonetic
Reply-To: seeta@eng.wayne.edu
Organization: College of Engineering, Wayne State University, Detroit Michigan, USA
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 16:38:18 GMT


Before U jump in the following cesspool, check out whether Ur cesspooling
tendencies match with mine ...  <<6 newsgroups>>

I believe in the following :-

That the ancient egyptian and chinese scripts are epitomization of pictographism in scripts.
Russian, English and tamil, etc... are next, keeping alive that tradition.
Many other languages follow... especially other european languages as they have
		bigger alphabets than english.
Then german,... (as far I know/heard about of it)...
...
Comes Hindi and other Indian languages
Then telugu (personally, feel) as it crosses that `invisible dividing line' separating
		pictographic scripts from phonetic alphabets.  Marathi also comes here
		perhaps.  Most languages in India, lack the completeness of alphabet
		like these two, which include letter like `LL' (looks like infinity with
		vertical line in devanagari), and other such letters...
The other end belongs solely to samskritam.  (SANSKRIT is written so, thru'out this post).


If U do not agree with the above, press `f' or `F' to flame me, else continue...

++++++++++++++++++++++++ BEgin ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I placed samskritam at the lowest rung, to emphasise (and hint on) what I
want to say (below)...

I am slowly coming to the conclusion that phonetic scripts (alpahbets) are
useless.  Their only utility so far is to communicate the CORRECT pronunciation
to another person, IN WRITING.  But who wants to use phonetics in todays age when a
phone call would suffice, or tommorrow, when, multimedia and voice-annotated
documents will be reality..

The telugu software developed by a pair of genius programmers (kishore & ramarao gaaru)
triggered this sequence of thoughts in my subconcious, and it has now come to the
fore in clear and precise language. (oh! well, atleast clear language!)

I always admired my aunt (pinni:telugu -- mausi:hindi) for her ability to read telugu
at an incredible pace.  Everyone acknowledged that, but what caught my attention
was her `DD news reader style' of reading : she would pop up her head many times,
and would be capable of infusing emotion and feeling into what she reads at those speeds.
Soon, I located innumerable such people around me.  (Obviously my aunt is not a mutant!)

Being a computer engr, and one who has dealt with course projects in automated vision
and speech, I can see things not easily observable even to the most intelligent
linguists.  SO can other comp.sci students.  This is simply because of the tools
we use and the experience we have of (in an attempt at) recreating god's creation.

Anyway, I hypothesize this.  Even when reading samskritam, IF WE ARE REGULAR samskritam
readers, we utilize pattern matching abilities of the human brain, to recognize
WHOLE WORDS and not individual letters.  It is well known in vision technology that
human brain stores information in patterns unrelated to the way we learn the patterns.
Hence words in samskritam also become a jumble of lines and curves, and the brain
correlates each such PICTURE with a sound-sequence (speech) and emotion/feelings etc...

So now, why is then are phonetic alpahebts needed?  Do students in india studying the
indian alphabets learn TO PRONOUNCE when shown new words (made from the indian alpahabets)
more quickly than the english or europeans do for the european words...?

No.  We all have seen our childhood friends struggle with ``reading''.

			++++++++++++++++++

In fact, when reading, say, Hindi, the young child, must FIRST match each letter,
pronounce it, then match the group of letters and pronounce them together, and
then, RESEARCH the brain's memory for the related emotion...

Its inefficient.  Conmsider english(likewise in tamil or chinese).  U see
a word : know : ---- Its a picture, rather than a sequence of letters (think about it).
Ur brain then generates two corresponding 'outputs' : one the pronunciation
as `no' and the other the emotions/feelings/ideas/notions/etc...

simpler. IN FACT, that how the brain works!! and works best, and its most suited for!!

Now is there a good reason for getting scripts to be more phonetic?
Can U get Urself to accept the fact the second most (and worst sometimes) pictographic
language in the world -- ENGLISH -- can handle all other languages in this world?

We indians have always prided ourselves for possessing the greatest set of language
scripts ever designed.  Ok.  But what for?  They are inefficient for practical use.
They are as useful as esparanto.  esparanto died, because its wasnt anybody's
language!  So would samskritam be dead, but for the efforts of a few crazies like 
the likes of VVerma & ...kt ;-) ;-) ;-)

Seetamraju Udaya Bhaskar Sarma
(email : seetam @ ece7 . eng . wayne . edu)

Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian.telugu