Pasigraphy

A Pasigrafie (Greek: pan/pas- = all graphein = write ) is a font that should be understandable to people of all languages. Pictograms in places which bring together members of many different nations and languages ​​( for example at international airports ), are a step in this direction. The pictograms that the designer Otl Aicher at the Summer Olympic Games in Munich, created in 1972, were suitable as guidance, but far from the status of a full font.

The Pasigrafie is by definition a universal font using common characters. This idea goes back to Leibniz. For him this idea in Latin scriptura universalis or French écriture universal means. Both mean universal font. Leibniz experimented all his life with designs for a universal language and a universal font. In a memorandum he struck Peter the Great, a questionnaire survey to determine a core vocabulary of remote languages ​​from the Russian colonial territory before. Also for the Chinese writing Leibniz interested for these reasons and he was in frequent correspondence with the Jesuits, who were active in the China mission.

Such a constructed language ( lingua universalis characteristica ) requires a maximum adaptation to logical- philosophical and mathematical structures. The words are, according to Leibniz, not only reflect ideas, but also illustrate their relationships.

The universal symbolic language should serve three purposes.

People who were trying to create a universal font

  • For the first time the word Pasigrafie ' in 1797 by Joseph de Maimieux in his treatise Pasigraphie ou premiers éléments du novel ArtScience d' écrire et d' imprimer en une langue de manière likely to have been à être lu et entendu dans toute autre langue sans traduction used. His system is based on twelve basic signs which make by combinations of three to five characters the basic vocabulary.
  • The Frenchman Jean François Sudre be constructed Solresol on the seven Solmisations syllables (do, re, mi ... ). This document language could be sung, written and spoken.
  • 1807 are C. Demainieux in Paris Free public lectures on Pasigrafie.
  • Was founded in 1864 in Munich, Karl Obermair a pasigraphischen club. Bach Meier's system was based on a mark of character by Arabic numerals. Through underline or strike of the numbers as well as above set underscores the different meaning of the word is displayed. This idea was in its time quite broad support.
  • In the same year as Bach Meier Moses Paic put in Vienna his system a universal language both by Scripture ( Pasigraphie ), and by the sounds ( Pasilogie ) by means of term fixation before the Arabic numerals and their Lautfixirung for international traffic. Examples: "I hear " is written: " 2074 111 ", saying, " dullomaba ". " You hear " would be: " 2074 112 ", respectively. " Dullomabe ". This follows from the fact that each number is assigned a sound. Difficult the system is designed in that the rhythm is used as a distinguishing feature - " dala " ( " 2171 " ) is emphasized spondeisch called " silence" ( genitive of silence), " mandalas " ( " 2176 " - " singing " ) is trochaic to intone; also pentameter, Pyrrhiccien, dactyls are required to apply Paic 's universal language.
  • AD Lutomirski, a language teacher from Rotterdam, developed in 1887 a Pasistenographie, ie a shorthand that should be suitable for all spoken languages ​​in his view. It is composed of five alphabetic and seven grammatical character - this come a point or a line as distinguishing features.
  • The German Koreanist Andre Eckardt from the Chinese characters created a script, which he called Safo ( = sense of writing).
  • The Austro-Hungarian Jew Karl Kasiel flash ( Charles K. Bliss ), who got to know the Chinese writing on his flight in the ghetto of Shanghai, created the Bliss symbols. Bliss noticed that the characters were pronounced differently in different provinces of China, but were understood equally in all of China. But his so-called Semasiografie fell into oblivion until decades later, a Canadian organization for the disabled was looking for easy to learn symbols for the Spastic.
Blissymbols
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