Sure, I agree that alphabet systems are initially easier to learn than logographic systems. But to achieve that they sacrifice the consistency and lack of ambiguity of a logographic system. It’s funny you bring up Korean as an example of a good alphabet system, because I can assure you as someone who is currently learning Korean, it has it’s weird spelling inconsistencies and pronunciation “rules” and exceptions, just like any other alphabet system.
And again, I’m not trying to convince you that one is better than the other. My whole point is that one isn’t any better or worse than another. They each have their own strengths, weaknesses, and specific purposes, they’re both functional, one isn’t better or worse than the other as a whole.
A take I had from this is that a non-phonetic written language works like cached memory (and you might have a lot to cache), while phonetic is like real-time rendering. I was reading about how Vietnam changed to its current script, and just like Korea, and also Paulo Freire’s view of language, seems like the change made the language more accessible.
You’re absolutely correct that Korea (and Vietnam I suppose, I don’t know much about their language) invented their alphabet to make literacy more accessible, and I think that’s awesome and a really good feature of alphabet systems. I can even see why that would make people prefer alphabet systems, since accessibility is super important when you’re first learning a language.
I think your cached vs. real-time analogy is spot on. And while you can definitely come up with scenarios where caching is better than real-time rendering, and other scenarios where real-time rendering is better than caching, it’d be difficult to argue that one is unequivocally better or worse than the other.
Sure, I agree that alphabet systems are initially easier to learn than logographic systems. But to achieve that they sacrifice the consistency and lack of ambiguity of a logographic system. It’s funny you bring up Korean as an example of a good alphabet system, because I can assure you as someone who is currently learning Korean, it has it’s weird spelling inconsistencies and pronunciation “rules” and exceptions, just like any other alphabet system.
And again, I’m not trying to convince you that one is better than the other. My whole point is that one isn’t any better or worse than another. They each have their own strengths, weaknesses, and specific purposes, they’re both functional, one isn’t better or worse than the other as a whole.
A take I had from this is that a non-phonetic written language works like cached memory (and you might have a lot to cache), while phonetic is like real-time rendering. I was reading about how Vietnam changed to its current script, and just like Korea, and also Paulo Freire’s view of language, seems like the change made the language more accessible.
You’re absolutely correct that Korea (and Vietnam I suppose, I don’t know much about their language) invented their alphabet to make literacy more accessible, and I think that’s awesome and a really good feature of alphabet systems. I can even see why that would make people prefer alphabet systems, since accessibility is super important when you’re first learning a language.
I think your cached vs. real-time analogy is spot on. And while you can definitely come up with scenarios where caching is better than real-time rendering, and other scenarios where real-time rendering is better than caching, it’d be difficult to argue that one is unequivocally better or worse than the other.