201–204 of 204 posts
On a barely more productive note, I am pretty sceptical that an "optimized" alphabet glyph would be one dot for a b c d e, two adjacent dots for f g h i, etc. How likely is it that alphabetical order also happens to be the best dot pattern?
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Or it would require standardizing on certain pronunciations.
My native language, Romanian, is written exactly as it is heard. Dialects with differing pronunciations still exist. In practice, everyone who speaks in dialect, writes the words as if transliterated from the official pronunciations (which is taught in schools), but pronounces the words as they're used. So in writing everyone gets each other. Orally, it can be a bit difficult sometimes.
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Definitely proud. Why embarrassed?
Because the hubris of tech people to think something like "hey, trillions of humans have collectively decided over a few thousand years that the latin alphabet hits a pretty good sweet spot in human communication. I bet they didn't consider how readable it is, though. I can do better than all of them," is wearing thin. This came up in the Robinhood checking thread a few days ago. "Do you really think that you're goin…
This isn't a unique aspiration of tech. Folks have been trying to achieve better othographies than the one we grafted on as a colonizer's comprimise for a long time. Projects like Shavian [0][1], Read Script (Quickscript) [2], and Deseret [3] come to mind as prior art in this space that predate the invention of the modern tech community and its current perceived class distinction.
I'd argue it's the supreme arrogance to assume that in a modern world populated with people who's average intelligence, nutrition and education was only accessible to the richest and most powerful 0.001% 200 years ago that NO progress can be made on a common linguistic platform. The classical alphabet we use has ALSO been revised and has literally hundreds of variants.
On a personal note, I don't at all regret the decision to learn to read and write in Shavian. Having a semi-private notation with which to take notes, form signatures, etc. The only thing I am sad about is that so few people in this community (and others) decided to put in the modest effort required to do the same. If I do occasionally offer thoughts in ·𐑖𐑱𐑝𐑾𐑯, 𐑐𐑰𐑐𐑤 𐑸 𐑩𐑯𐑜𐑮𐑰, 𐑮𐑧𐑕𐑧𐑯𐑑𐑓𐑳𐑤 𐑰𐑝𐑧𐑯! 𐑤𐑲𐑒 𐑞 𐑧𐑒𐑕𐑦𐑕𐑑𐑧𐑯𐑕 𐑝 𐑩𐑤𐑑𐑺𐑯𐑩𐑑𐑦𐑝 𐑹𐑔𐑪𐑜𐑮𐑩𐑓𐑰 𐑦𐑟 𐑩𐑯 𐑦𐑯𐑕𐑳𐑤𐑑. 𐑲 𐑛𐑪𐑯𐑑 𐑜𐑧𐑑 𐑦𐑑.
I'm debating if dotsies would be valuable to learn. My biggest complaint about it is that it's a reproduction of our current alphabet, and that means you'll end up with a lot of our weird di-and-trigraphs. If you're going to to the trouble of a con-script, why not use a phonetic base?
[0]: 𐑮𐑰𐑛 𐑥𐑹 𐑣𐑽: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavian_alphabet
[1]: 𐑢𐑦𐑗 𐑲𐑥 𐑒𐑳𐑥𐑓𐑹𐑑𐑩𐑚𐑤 𐑢𐑦𐑞, 𐑕𐑴 𐑮𐑧𐑤𐑰𐑕𐑛 𐑱 ·𐑤𐑦𐑯𐑳𐑒𐑟 𐑒𐑰𐑥𐑩𐑐 𐑣𐑽: https://gitlab.com/endomain/xkb-shavian-variant
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Notably differently, Dotsies is not heavily funded, nor does it want you to pay several digits for access. It’s just a fun experiment. It should not be held to the same standards of usefulness as a thousand-dollar juicer.
I appreciate the support :) Creator of Dotsies here. I've been using Dotsies to read books since 2012 (maybe around 100). At first on a Kindle and then on a Kobo after Amazon stopped letting you add your own fonts. I reached my normal reading speed a few years ago, and now reading it is fairly second nature. I now prefer it to normal fonts, and have the feeling that my eyes are racing unnecessarily from side to side…
I'm also packaging the fonts up for Void Linux but was unable to find any licensing information. Do you have dotsies under Creative Commons? Did I just miss something?