Excerpt From Lu Chi's Wen Fu

"Prior to the composition of the Wen Fu, the first great work to discuss the use of language is the Ta Hsueh (or Great Learning) of K'ung-fu Tzu (Confucius). Master K'ung believed all wisdom lies in learning to call things by the right name, and that only through a "rectification of names" might one proceed toward enlightened living. This insight is doubly remarkable when we remember that K'ung Tzu lived in a nation that was far more sophisticated than any other on earth at that time, its language rich in emblematic phrases, euphemisms, double entendres, and layered ambiguities loaded with plurisignation" (Hamill xv-xvi).

More to come later, as I make my way through this text.

Language Musings

"Convention leads to deception." --- Alex Caldiero

Whatdayathink?

A Visual Evolution of the Latin/English Alphabet

Click here to see a visual evolution of the Latin/English alphabet, courtesy of www.popamericana.org.

Deseret Alphabet Cont'd...

Scott Abbott has posted a wonderful article about the Deseret Alphabet on his blog "The Goalie's Anxiety." Scott will soon be a contributor on this blog :) Check his article out here.

Deseret Alphabet

Here are a few links with information about the Deseret Alphabet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deseret_alphabet

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/deseret.htm

http://www.deseretalphabet.com/

http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/deseretalphabet.htm

In 1950, Bradbury Thompson proposed a redesigned alphabet called Alphabet 26 that unified the characters in favor of uppercase forms with large and small variations to be used as capitals are. He argued having some letters look completely different in their upper and lowercase forms was confusing. For example, a capital "A" looks nothing like a lowercase "a", yet they're supposed to mean the same thing. (More...)