Another Short History of Linguistics (47)

The development of sound was shifting step by step, yet since the alphabetic letter is (or has to) representing sound, then when the quantity of letter was settled it should very hard to introduce a new sound into that system. For any new sound could be substandard sound to this language, it would meet the pressure from orthodox power, until it have more power to overcome it. When a new sound don’t have a form of letter to represent it; for the number of letter was settled already, this new sound can only share a letter or combination of letters with other sound. That is why the English letter can have so many different pronunciations. The funny thing is that at the beginning, Phoenician was intend to simplify the language writing system but now, when more and more new species of sound emerged accompanying with the requirement of information quantity growing up, to remember how to pronounce a single letter such as a, c, e, o etc. turned to be difficulty or complex. We have to learn them by a special knowledge called phonology. In other word, if in ancient time, the Phoenician didn’t invent the alphabetic letter, the human kind still using pictogram, then there would be no phonology. While on the other hand, a pictogram language doesn’t have this limit, theoretically, each character had a separately single sound, they don’t interfere each other. If a new sound were introduced or we may say if any time they meet a new sound from a different language or a dialect, they just invent a new character for it. The only exception to introduce a great quantity of new letters in alphabetic language is separating from the originally language by political reason or we may say a new political power is rising. So I reckon the alphabetic language will never solve the international linguistic issue.