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PHYLOGENETIC DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN SYMBOLISM → WRITING
PHYLOGENETIC DEVELOPMENT
OF HUMAN SYMBOLISM
WRITING
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
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Modern writing systems are mostly phonetic, either on sounds (abstracted into phonemes), be they vowels or consonants, or on syllables associating at least one consonant and one vowel. There can be many variations on these simple ideas. Semitic languages only write consonants, except for “alep,” “alef,” or whatever other name it may have, the vocalic sound /a/ when it is the initial sound of a discursive word. Tamil and other languages of the same type (isolating languages either known as Sino-Tibetan or Tibeto-Burman) use syllabic writing systems with eventually diacritic signs or modulations for another vocalic sound than the basic /a/.
Syllabic practices exist all over the world. Music notes in the West are derived from the first syllable of a hymn, each of these first syllables sung at the proper pitch.
Ut queant laxīs resonāre fibrīs
Mīra gestōrum famulī tuōrum,
Solve pollūtī labiī reātum,
Sancte Iohannēs.
(So that your servants may, / with loosened voices, / Resound the wonders / of your deeds, / Clean the guilt / from our stained lips, / O St. John.)
We have the same principle in Carnatic music, though not from a hymn but the full names given to the notes:
1. Sa — Shadjama (Tonic)
2. Ri — Rishabha
3. Ga — Gandhara
4. Ma — Madhyama
5. Pa — Panchama (Perfect Fifth)
6. Da — Dhaivata
7. Ni — Nishada
Those note names are symbolical but meaningful, whereas the use of letters (A to G) in many European countries, and the world, is symbolical but the letters have no other meaning than the degrees they refer to by simple convention, A being the LA of the Latin system. Hence the scale is C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C.
