1. I made a minor change to the titles of the posts, including the (rough) date that the writing system came into existence and what (modern-day) country it appeared in.\u00a0 (The country will need to be approximate.\u00a0 Usually the exact latitude\/longitude isn’t known.)\u00a0 Note that where it appeared and where it is currently used can be very different.\u00a0 Bopomofo is currently only used in Taiwan, but it was developed in the area now covered by the People’s Republic of China.<\/p>\n
2. I have made other minor changes to posts — fixing typos, improving wording, etc.<\/p>\n
3. I haven’t edited the posts to show that I made changes.\u00a0 There is one ethos that says that in dated posts, you should always be clear about when you change it retroactively, that otherwise you are dishonestly claiming that you said X on date Y when in fact you said X’ on date Y.<\/p>\n
In general, I agree with that for substantive changes.\u00a0 However, I don’t think grammar and wording tweaks are (usually) substantive.\u00a0 Furthermore, this blog doesn’t cover time-sensitive material, nor is it a highly competitive area.\u00a0 This is in a blog format because it’s a convenient mechanism to dole out bits of information one-at-a-time, not because it is breaking news.\u00a0 Nobody’s career is going to be made or broken if I add a paragraph to Sumerian Cuneiform a month later about what the species of reed the Sumerians used to write with.<\/p>\n
At a more fundamental level, I don’t think anybody really cares about this blog except me.<\/p>\n
Thus, for edits that are fixing typos, wording clumsiness, or additions, I probably won’t mark it as an update.\u00a0 For edits that contradict what I said before (like if I had said that Simplified Chinese had been mandated by the Mongols who took over Egypt in 1625 AD, then fixed that), I will do my best to mark them as updated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1. I made a minor change to the titles of the posts, including the (rough) date that the writing system came into existence and what (modern-day) country it appeared in.\u00a0 (The country will need to be approximate.\u00a0 Usually the exact … Continue reading