Xref: utzoo alt.hypertext:818 comp.cog-eng:1925 comp.graphics:17070 comp.multimedia:287 comp.software-eng:5265 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ukma!s.ms.uky.edu!jpenny From: jpenny@ms.uky.edu (Jim Penny) Newsgroups: alt.hypertext,comp.cog-eng,comp.graphics,comp.multimedia,comp.software-eng Subject: Re: Images vs. Text Message-ID: Date: 5 Apr 91 21:26:04 GMT References: <1991Apr2.180348.19733@smsc.sony.com> <1991Apr02.235121.17834@convex.com> <1991Apr5.032157.10421@ecf.utoronto.ca> Distribution: na Organization: University Of Kentucky, Dept. of Math Sciences Lines: 81 xiaoy@ecf.toronto.edu (XIAO Yan) writes: >In article jpenny@ms.uky.edu (Jim Penny) writes: > (Lines deleted...) >>The assertion is just plain silly, as it amounts to the assertion that >>rebuses or pictograms are easier to understand than alphabetic languages. >>There is at least two thousand years of history which points the other >>way. > > Ever learnt a language Called Chinese which doesn't use alphabetic > letters? Of course there are two living counter-examples, Chinese which is not character oriented, but neither is it especially pictogram oriented either (most characters have long ago lost any pictorial content). A second partial example is Japanese which uses kanji, as well as katakana, hiragana, and romanji. This is not to be insulting to Japanese tradition, but it is almost incomprehensible that a people would insist on writing primarily in a foreign language. It is as if all Europeans still wrote only in church Latin. Other examples of pictogram languages are classical Mayan, old Egyptian. I am sure there are others. An example of a neither alphabetic nor pictographic writing is the cuneiform system of Sumeria. Nevertheless, a good case can be made that alphabetic or syllabic writing systems are superior to non-alphabetic systems. First, I know of no culture that willing converted from an alphabetic representation to a pictographic one. Second, there are many cultures that have partially or completly changed from pictographic to alphabetic representations, these include Korea (partially), and Vietnam. Other cultures have converted from complicated alphabets to simpler alphabets (e.g. Turkey). In every case, there is anecdotal evidence that it is easier to teach illiterate members of the culture to read and write using an alphabet than the previous system. None of the above should be taken as support for traditional English spelling. It is an atrocious system, and I would like to see it reformed. It is also true that adult literate readers of alpahabetic languages do not read a character at a time, but rather process far larger chunks. For defenders of the Chinese writing system I have three questions: 1) how many characters are in use today in written Chinese? 2) how many characters were in use 1000 years ago in written Chines? 3) If Chinese writing is inherently simpler than an alphabetic systems, how is this trend to be explained? In any event, this is a detour from the original writer who claimed that people could invariably process pictures faster than text: 1) It is not clear that Chinese characters are pictures in the sense the original poster intended. If they are considered to be pictures, then it is not clear that a word written in an alphabetic language is not a picture. 2) If pictures are inherently superior, consider the following series of questions: a) I will select at random a word from the dictionary: you may draw as many pictures as you would like, but no letters, to convey that word to a third party. Will this be easy? b) I will select at random a word from the dictionary; you may draw as many letters as you want to convey the word to a third party. Will this be easy? c) Which of scenerios a and b are a parlor game? 3) What does the following picture mean? _ _ / \ / \ / \ / \ \ / \ / \_/ \_/ ---------------------- (hint: it is seen in my kitchen) It appears on my dishwasher, and means heat dry!