>> It seemed to me from that same documentary that pretty much all writing systems appeared independently from spoken language: In a sense, written and spoken appeared independently, and then the Rébus principle, and then this "acrophonic principle" made the writing system, and thus "language", sort of subdued to the spoken language. Is that true?
>I must admit to being confused as to what you’re asking here. What exactly do you mean by ‘appearing independently’, and writing systems being ‘subdued to the spoken language’?
I meant that the writing system appeared at first, not as a way to "write down" spoken language, but as a language of its own (hence independent) with no relation to the already present spoken language.
By "subdued", I meant that (again, from what I understood), the Rébus principle is the first "interaction" between the spoken and written language, and the "acrophonic principle" goes a step further in a sense, so that the written language is not anymore an independent system, but a symbolic representation of the spoken language (sounds -> symbols).
This is quite counter-intuitive to me, hence my asking about it.
>I must admit to being confused as to what you’re asking here. What exactly do you mean by ‘appearing independently’, and writing systems being ‘subdued to the spoken language’?
I meant that the writing system appeared at first, not as a way to "write down" spoken language, but as a language of its own (hence independent) with no relation to the already present spoken language. By "subdued", I meant that (again, from what I understood), the Rébus principle is the first "interaction" between the spoken and written language, and the "acrophonic principle" goes a step further in a sense, so that the written language is not anymore an independent system, but a symbolic representation of the spoken language (sounds -> symbols).
This is quite counter-intuitive to me, hence my asking about it.