15-06-2017, 11:09 PM
(This post was last modified: 16-06-2017, 07:12 AM by voynichbombe.
Edit Reason: typos..
)
The term "constructed" is more applicable to scripts as a whole. Characters, which are graphs, are per se always constructed out of primitives. The shape, the way the scribe actually puts the graph to paper, hence "what it looks like" is called a glyph.
If you mean "invented", or "made up", that's an interesting point. Thinking of it, only two scripts are accepted to be original inventions, sumerian and early mesoamerican. Chinese and egyptian are up to debate. All other scripts are deemed evolved, derived or adopted from, or inspired by existing writing systems.
At a certain point in time someone sat down and constructed e.g. the glagolithic alphabet. It is assumed the person or group was literate in a previous writing system already, otherwise it would be equivalent to invent writing itself.
There are only so many primitives. It seems virtually impossible to invent a writing system out of the blue, without resemblance to anything already known.
All of this implies a writing system, not a cipher, and an underlying language, which of course may be constructed as well.
If you mean "invented", or "made up", that's an interesting point. Thinking of it, only two scripts are accepted to be original inventions, sumerian and early mesoamerican. Chinese and egyptian are up to debate. All other scripts are deemed evolved, derived or adopted from, or inspired by existing writing systems.
At a certain point in time someone sat down and constructed e.g. the glagolithic alphabet. It is assumed the person or group was literate in a previous writing system already, otherwise it would be equivalent to invent writing itself.
There are only so many primitives. It seems virtually impossible to invent a writing system out of the blue, without resemblance to anything already known.
All of this implies a writing system, not a cipher, and an underlying language, which of course may be constructed as well.