Character

Use this forum to suggest Good Words for Professor Beard.
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Slava
Great Grand Panjandrum
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Character

Postby Slava » Wed Nov 20, 2013 7:47 pm

Some interesting uses in this one. Being of good character does not mean you are runic. Yet runes are characters, too. Even more so than one's reputation.

Character goes all the way back to the ancient Greek for an engraver's tool, thus making characters graven images.

According to my Merriam-Webster Book of Word Histories of 1976, certain bondsmen had a character of a horse carved into their forehead to show who and what they were.

I do hope my personal character is more sympathetic.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

Philip Hudson
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Location: Texas

Re: Character

Postby Philip Hudson » Mon Nov 25, 2013 4:40 am

Roman and other characters are used as sound particles that make up a syllable. In some languages, Cherokee for example, there are only a few syllables. I believe, but am not sure, that Hawaiian and Swahili are syllable languages. The Cherokee Sequoia chose to write with symbols for syllables. Not knowing how to read at all, Sequoia took the Roman alphabet letters and randomly assigned them to Cherokee syllables. He then invented some symbols of his own to make up the full complement of needed syllable signs. I suppose one might call it a syllablebet. Charles Hicks, a contemporary of Sequoiah, was highly educated in English, Latin and Greek. He made a set of Cherokee syllables with phonetically spelled Roman letters. Tsa-li was the way he spelled Charlie. I don’t read Cherokee but one of my many cousins does. I learned it from him. I haven’t vetted this, so any Cherokee speaker/writer/reader is welcomes to correct me.
It is dark at night, but the Sun will come up and then we can see.


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