The Base Overlay and The Joined Characters

Millions of single symbols can be formed from only 70 bases

The way to increase characters
The feature of the compounding system

The way to increase characters

The key of the way
The revolutionary key point of this system is overlaying bases on top of each other ( maximum six or seven occasionally) to make a new character. The new one is called a base overlay.

Examples of ideogram:
A base overlay laid over a dot with a circle is not a simple dot or a circle anymore, but a new independent shape.
The shape becomes a new hieroglyphic or an abstract symbol independently from the original images.
(dot) + (proper noun) = (it: the thing in a topic/to signal the presence of a preceding noun)
+ (place) = (there) or =  (*See the usage of hyphen below)
+ (globe) = (the earth) or = 

Why the EL bases have varieties of the sizes/the shapes/the locations
in the frame is all to make this compounding system possible.

Verbal messages need time to gather images from the elements,
but the eyes catch total images at once combining elements.
When you get used to see EL characters, the visual symbols would strike you much faster,
even though you might feel hard at first.

Some base like a dot sometimes disappears when it compounded with other bases.
Not every base in every case matches to be compounded, but most combinations are available.
Most of the bases look too simple, but overlaid with others, they can form various shapes,
matching with many fundamental meanings.

Millions of single characters from a small amount of the bases

As the elements for worldwide recording of both meaning and sound,
EL needs many more single characters than any traditional language has.
But nobody wants to memorize many shapes and rules.
A smaller amount is better to use keyboards also.
This system provides new characters from a small amount of the bases
as many as you like without much effort to learn.

The idea of base overlay is a kind of reform of the 2000-year-old Chinese characters .
Their system has about 250 parts; and each part has a meaning or a sound;
and a new character is formed as the variety of these combination.
Once they created 40-50 thousands of characters.
It was a rational idea, but 250 parts are too much for distinguishing shapes and sounds;
also inconvenient for computing: Chinese character parts are not mechanically compounded.
EL is devised for the global computing era.

Amount of the base overlay:
You may calculate the possibility.
If necessary in the future, or for private/secret usage, millions are possible,
but no necessary to memorize that much.
When you learned the basic system, you can think of what a new base overlay shows for you
and you might get the answer by yourself.

• 
  * Once I had struggled to build EL with 60 bases, another time with
  more than 200 bases; and found this setting was the most comfortable to use.
  Tight bases is easy to memorize shapes, but difficult to express using them.

Using Hyphen
In case a base overlay with many elements looks too complicate, you also can use
a hyphen between fundamental characters to show a complicate concept
by all together. (this hyphen was added instead of former #gf mark on 2006)
When using hyphen, put the main substantial part of the concept first.
(global world) is shown as too.

Joined-characters:
If a meaning can be expressed as separated plural concepts, you can express as
Joined-characters, arranging fundamental characters next to each other,
according to the rule: "the left character modifies the right one"

E.g.
: fruit-nectar (as one character)
: {liquid-fruit}: fruit-nectar
(When using hyphen, the main element of the concept comes first)
: the liquid of fruit (the left character, fruit modifies the right character, liquid)

Get the EL Font to see how fun EL Overlay typing is, unintentionally making
interesting shapes and funny combination of meanings.
The EL ASCII is in the same page.

(NB) Need to be clear for hand-writing
For this system, EL does not allow cursive handwriting. Symbols have to be shown clearly.
This is the way to communicate beyond any traditional cultures.
It is not necessary to be exact, but be careful for the relation of shapes in the hand-writing.

The feature of the Compounding system

As a tool for rational thinking
The Compounded-character system is a rational method for analyzing and combining images
Even if unrelated to worldwide communications, the system is still a good tool for personal thinking and creating.
Because any kind of the creation was born in the process of newly combining different concepts.
Your brain might be stimulated by new combinations of EL bases and those images.

Also EL characters are useful for a quick note for some impression, and for icons to mark some categories.

To see yourself objectively
You can think more objectively when trying to express your mind/vocal sound in the EL system.
Sometimes you get carried away with your native tongue.
But in EL, you need to catch the images more clearly to express meanings or pronunciations;
you can't cheat yourself.

As the tool for researching information
The main element characters of a title can be the clue to look for. So, even if one is not sure how to write a character in EL, still it's available to get close to the target through the fundamental images in a dictionary, encyclopedia or future Internet web site, contrary to the present system needed to learn a lot of English vocabularies.

As a tool for learning or teaching any kind of languages
The symbolic shapes can help little children understand the local words. For a little child, it is difficult to understand that Mom, Grandpa, a postman, are all humans. Pictures with the hieroglyphic character can help them to have a better idea of the symbols. The EL basic programs and picture books would commonly help for children worldwide for learning each traditional language.

Also children can train their minds to concentrate and to analyze visually, distinguishing each base in characters in some games. This training might help to catch total visions analyzing the details in their future lives.

And for adults, the symbolic definition characters and the phonetic signs help to teach or learn any language, with the easily understood system. Also the EL brackets and the system help personal study and information management. Then gradually starts to work as the tool for the international communication.

For icons and advertising
The hieroglyphs and the symbolic single characters have strong impact to send the messages, just like icons or traffic signals. So if you get used to them, you can capture the main message from a long article much faster than using the current Alphabet.

It is easy for people of any language to use the computer, if the commands and the functions are set using the base overlays as icons or through keys. (Of course needed a completely new software for the base overlay system though.)

The independent characters are placed in maps and graphs to attract people's eyes quickly. The impact of the symbolic characters will develop advertising.