Re: Non-linear / full-2d writing systems?

The Star Trek Ferengi language does this.  At least it
wsa described as being two-dimensional, although some
attempts at constructing more details of the language
have not always adhered to that philosophy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi
http://www.pinette.net/chris/startrek/ferengi.html

--- Sai Emrys <saizai@...> wrote:
> Has anyone other than me attempted to make one, or
> theorized about how
> one would do so & the consequences thereof? I'm
> fairly sure this is
> true, but I can't find any examples thereof via
> Google..
>
> By "full-2d", what I mean is something akin to a
> thoughtweb - rather
> than a serialized / linear sequence of characters,
> it would
> interconnect concepts in 2d (or greater) space. For
> example, copular
> forms - equation, adjectives, subset, etc. - could
> probably all be
> written by connecting two (symbolic) ideas with a
> line of a particular
> kind, representing their relation.
>
> Another idea is from frame semantics - one could
> create a
> frame-foregrounding (rather than word-foregrounding)
> language with
> this fairly easily. That is, to take the generic
> cogsci example, one
> would have a symbol for "commercial transaction",
> and then emphasize
> particular roles of it - which could be
> connection-points on the
> symbol - to express verbs like buy, sell, cost,
> bargain, etc.
>
> Comments / links / amazingly better and
> well-thought-out ideas?
>
>  - Sai
>