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A bigger problem for ideography: The pervasiveness of linguistic structure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2023

Daniel Harbour
Daniel Harbour*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics (SLLF), Queen Mary University of London, London, UK d.harbour@qmul.ac.uk; www.qmul.ac.uk/sllf/linguistics/people/academic/profiles/harbour.html
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Abstract

Writing systems display ubiquitous linguistic structure, from the recursive syntactic properties of their glyphs to the morphology/phonology of their combinatorics. This extends to Ancient Egyptian, Chinese, and Sumerian ideograms. Pure ideography requires switching this influence off. The pervasive linguistic tinge to the fabric of writing systems suggests that the chances of breaking what Morin terms language's lock-in effect are slim.

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Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 46 , 2023 , e244
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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