While surfing I found the abstract below, which gives some insights
into how the brain processes Japanese kana and kanji. I wonder how this
information can be applied to the design of new scripts. Any thoughts?
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6SYV-4FPX2M0-1
&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_ve
rsion=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=c940a080e9939890c67a504aa98872e0
Language functions in the left basal temporal area (LBTA) were
investigated using electrical cortical stimulation during functional
mapping in six Japanese patients with refractory epilepsy. This study
provides the first direct evidence that kana (Japanese syllabogram) is
processed in the LBTA.
Electrical stimulation of some areas within LBTA induced disturbance in
overt reading of kana words only in the first trials, with no errors in
the subsequent trials. By contrast, stimulation of the same area caused
obvious disturbance in kana non-word reading in all trials.
Since a kana word carries both meaning and sound while a kana non-word
carries only sounds of a letter string, the contrasting results of
partial and complete disturbance imply a possibility that there are two
distinct pathways for kana reading: one dealing with both phonological
and semantic aspects of the words and the other dealing only with
phonological aspect.
Kanji words (Japanese morphogram) and objects/pictures were found to be
processed in an area different from the area for the kana non-word
processing. Furthermore, the present study also identified the common
area for processing kanji reading and object/picture naming. There were
no errors in matching pictures with kanji words, indicating that
concepts of pictures and meanings of kanji words were not interfered by
the electrical stimulation of that area.
The new insight provides a clue for partial description of processing
pathways for language-related visual information in LBTA. Three types
of information (morphological, phonological, and semantic) are conveyed
together at some stages and are separated into different routes at some
other stages.
