\4. Following from that: what is the relationship between style and function here? That is, if Akie learns all the abbreviations and, let's say, assimilates them into his own handwriting, as it stands—
i. Is this completely feasible? The interactions between letters are much more involved than in written longhand. They therefore don't allow as much stylistic variation.
ii. Is it still the Abbreviations? Are the abbreviations the way they look, or the way they act? I'm inclined to say it's the latter—I hope it's the latter—but I also recognize that as a primarily aesthetic exercise, the way the resulting product looks is more important than it might otherwise be.