[split] An interview with Stephen Bax - 1 to 1 substitution discussion

[-JKP-]

To all of you... do you honestly believe that the VMS is a one-to-one substitution code in a natural language?

No, I think that Stephen could be right. The script could be an abjad (some vowel sounds are not written) and some sounds might be encoded using more than one "glyph". In particular, I think there is ample evidence for the second point (e.g. the various e, ee, eee, in, iin, iin sequences). I also don't see any particular reason to a-priori exclude that it could be an abjad.

I already responded to the reference to abjads. I think the possibility of an abjad should always be on the table, until we know otherwise. This is an old idea, around since long before I knew about the VMS.

But, on the second point...

The question was NOT about there being a problem encoding some sounds with more than one glyph. We all know that is possible.

The question was how do you resolve the problem of there not being enough glyphs to encode all the other sounds if you use three glyphs for one sound-family. The VMS's character set is restrained to begin with. Use three-for-one and it becomes even more restrained. That's the question that was asked and instead of giving an answer, the person asking the question was dissed.


I am one of many who would like an answer to the question from the person who proposed the system. That is not an unreasonable request in any sense of the word.