A thought on designing a writing system
A Thought on Designing a Writing System
Things that may make it less readable
Homographs:
- Gakkou no kaidan (学校の階段）/ Gakkou no kaidan (学校の怪談)
- Shikai ni soudan suru (歯科医に相談する) / Shikai ni soudan suru (司会に相談する)
Minimal Pairs
- six / sex
- but / bud
Similar letters
- dog / bag
- パピプペポ / バビブベボ (The worst thing in the Japanese writing system)
- Especially dangerous when you see a word that you didn't know (e.g. パンデクテン or バンデクテン ?)
Badly designed letters
- Kanji and kana are originally for vertical writing (e.g. に or しこ? 江 or シエ? 好 or 女子?)
How you can possibily make it better
Reduce the nmber of homographs, minimal pairs, and similar-looking words
- Utilize accent symbols: háshi (chopsticks), hashí (bridge), hashi (edge)
- Employing the traditional kanadsukai (旧仮名遣い): 回, 貝 and 階 are all kai in the modern kanadsukai, but in the traditional, they're kwai, kahi, and kai.
- Capitalizing the first letters of katakana words (e.g., クリスマス and 暮らします are more distinguishable when the first letter of Kurisumasu is capitalized. )
