I salute your dedication to this nuttiness. I'm also pleasantly surprised to find out just how funny this joke remains even as another year rolls around.

I hadn't noticed any of these posts for so long, I had thought the individual behind this had gone away or given up or taken his quest to another forum.

While I don't think we'll ever modify our alphabet in this way - because the rationale is simply unpersuasive to that great majority of Latin alphabet users who are not of the Hindu faith - I could see how the goal might be achieved through a more subtle approach.

Perhaps the Armenian alphabet has no "suicidal" shapes of this type in it. And it has room - used in Eastern Armenian - for the extra consonant sounds found in Chinese (particularly in the Shanghai dialect, where English b, d, and g are also present)... and in Sanskrit. So this alphabet could be recommended on the more apparently rational grounds of promoting global unity and world peace.

If we can't all speak the same language, at least we can share the same typewriters.

the rationale is simply unpersuasive to that great majority of Latin alphabet users who are not of the Hindu faith

I'm reasonably sure that it is also unpersuasive to most Hindus.

Forsooth, some years ago the Chinese nation, weary of its cumbersome and inefficient writing system decided to replace it wholly and across the board, and after many months of consultation and contemplation settled on Armenian as the best possible choice. Unfortunately things went south when the Chinese government requested that Armenia promptly send 15 million teachers.

hhp

@John Hudson:
I'm reasonably sure that it is also unpersuasive to most Hindus.

That may be. But the rationale would at least be sufficiently intelligible to them that they might at least debate its merits.

@Hrant:
That was a good one, quite a chuckle!

Speaking of "sufficiently intelligible"... Can anyone explain what the heck is going on here? Or is this a very clever troll?

It's a human, and a kind one.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48413419@N00/5224762001

hhp

@pica pusher:
As I understand this, the OP broke away from the Hare Krishna movement as an individual because he lacked confidence in its new leadership after the death of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

The Hare Krishna movement, or ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) is, basically, a denomination of Hinduism or a faith organization within that religion. (I had a binaural test record that referred to them as "Buddhists", so apparently some confusion about Eastern religions exists.)

On his web page, he explains that an ancient battle between Gods and demons took place at the junction of several rivers; and that this event was so significant that the shape of that junction of rivers provokes suicidal thoughts in people. This involves an invisible river, called the Saraswati, but apparently the tradition of people in India committing suicide at a place of pilgrimage in Allahabad was real enough.

My favourite part of the whole thing is that one of the rivers creating this suicidal shape is invisible. We could perhaps ease Javascript's concerns by saying that the letter K is actually made up of four strokes, one of which is invisible, so its visible shape is not representative of its true shape, and hence its true (non-suicidal) meaning.

Hrant, did you take money for that job?

BTW, if you enjoy this, don't miss this.

I find it alternatively delightfully imaginative and depressingly stupid that all this time after the development of philology, palaeography and systematic linguistics people are still inclined to assign magical significance to the mundane phenomena of of writing. Writing is wonderful, but because it is made by this animal called human, not because it reveals occult knowledge or works as sympathetic magic on the psyche.

did you take money for that job?

Yes - a modest amount, but not bad for two glyphs. And the experience -plus party conversation value- I consider priceless.

hhp

Didn't it feel a bit like being paid to babysit someone's imaginary child, presuming that you don't actually accept the claim that the shape of the letter K provokes suicidal thoughts?

I have noticed that he (now?) claims on his web site that A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Praphupada had ordered that the shape of the letter K be altered on ISKCON publications; since that wasn't done on issues of Back to Godhead magazine published during his lifetime, I can only conclude he made that request shortly before his passing.

This would have a precedent; the Ballards printed the I Am magazine with purple ink because they were against the colors black and red. Summit University, on the other hand, has no such scruple.

...I can only conclude he made that request shortly before his passing.

Or that he did it invisibly.

John: Much easier than babysitting a real child, trust me.

hhp

Point.

@John Hudson:
BTW, if you enjoy this, don't miss this.

I tried visiting his web site, and I got a virus warning.

I thought you might have been referring to this:

http://www.meru.org/Press/Atlantisrising.html

It all maकes sense now! Thanक you.

But I've been insistent that Devanagari is so different from Latin that it maկes no sense to intermix letters from those scripts. Gujarati, as it uses disconnected letters, would be a better choice; and Armenian is better yet, as it is different enough so as to have a letter with different topology for the consonant in question, and yet related enough so that it can be unified in design.

John, funny - but maքes would be better. :-)

hhp