Re: Ancient writing systems

On May 2, 7:58 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On May 2, 1:40 pm, Richard Wordingham <jrw0...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

As this discussion is digressing to side issues, let me expand on the
main point. I do not believe that there is anything special about
most abugidas as such, and therefore it is not surprising that some
typologies do not include them. They are just alphabets (in PTD's
sense) that have a particular optimisation - one vowel is 'unmarked',
both metaphorically and literally.

Interestingly, this view does not apply to Cree and related writing
systems. The way to exclude them is to ensure that the definition of
an abugida says that explict vowels are shown by a mark rather than a
modification.

On 2 May, 12:43, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On May 2, 7:21 am, Richard Wordingham <jrw0...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It's amazing how much redundancy has been packed into the following
paragraph!
Are the old world abugidas
What would a new world abugida be?

Some consider the Cree syllabics to be abugidas.

Thank you, Condaleezza Rice. Who is "Some"?

There was a discussion of the issue on Qalam. Wikipedia is currently
classifying them as abujidas, so many will naturally think of them
when one talks of abugidas in general.

Cree is a "sophisticated grammatogeny," hence outside the typology.

Others have higher hopes of the applicability of your typology. The
proper issue is whether it is useful to classify them as abugidas.

What do you mean by "special"?

Meriting a term to denote them.

Why should I bother to try to respond when you constantly delete the
passage being discussed?
'Them' = 'abugidas'.

Formally, an abugida only
differs from a compulsorily vocalised abjad (a comprehensible
oxymoron, I hope)
What's the difference between a "compulsorily vocalized abjad" and an
alphabet?

I am thinking of a vocalisation that uses special vowel symbols rather
than matres lectionis - what I normally think of as 'pointing'.

Some writing systems using the Semitic scripts have 'compulsorily
vocalised abjads'; they are not organised like the Greek-based family
of alphabets. For example, with the Arabic and Syriac scripts one
typically writes the consonants in one pass and then one goes back and
writes the vowels if the writing system requires them.

In whose definition does the order of notating of the symbols figure?

This is reflection of the relative importance of consonants and vowels
in Syriac and Arabic. For a similar sentiment, note that according to
Richard Sproat, '[Alice] Faber defines these cases away by claiming
that only scripts where consonants and vowels are both represented
(thus Semitic scripts fail), are on a par (thus Indic scripts fail),
and are linearly arranged (thus Hankul fails), count as alphabetic and
thus segmental. So, in Faber's classification, Indic scripts do not
count as alphabetic.'

Are you genuinely unable to perceive a difference between
'compulsorily vocalised abjads' and alphabets derived from Greek?

in that a meaning is assigned to the lack of a vowel
indication and that this meaning is not the absence of a vowel. Are
there interesting consequences that result from having an implicit
vowel, rather than from the strategies for handling multiple
consonants in a syllable?
What is an "interesting consequence"?
The "strategies for handling multiple consonants" ("in a syllable" has
nothing to do with it) are not part of the definition of abugida.

There are various reports that those who use Indic scripts have
greater difficulty in certain word-game tasks. These seem to relate
to the syllabic organisation, and some difficulties relate to the
conflict between phonetic and orthographic syllables. These are
interesting consequences of the scripts. However, while almost all of
these scripts are abugidas, the scripts' being abugidas may well have
nothing to do with these phenomena. There is only one point at which
strategies for handling syllables other then CV affects the definition
of an abugida, which is why I said that such effects should be
excluded when answering my question.

The point of interaction is that in some writing systems each basic
symbol may represent either a consonant or a consonant plus the
implicit vowel.

The last time you mentioned this, it turned out you were referring to
low-level phonetic phenomena.

That was Ruud Harmsen talking about Irish. I'm talking about the
writing systems of Hindi, Punjabi (Gurmukhi) and Khmer, and not about
the writing systems of Sanskrit.

Can such a writing system be an abugida? 'Each basic
symbol represents a consonant plus a specific vowel' suffers from
several scope ambiguities.

Identify them.

1. 'Specific' to symbol or to script? The suggestion that independent
vowels could be handled by amending 'consonant plus a specified vowel'
to 'zero or more consonants plus a specified vowel' was based on the
interpretation as specific to symbol.
2. Does a basic symbol only represent a consonant plus a specific
vowel, or can it alternatively represent something else?
3. Does a basic symbol represent only one combination of consonant and
vowel, or may it sometime represent another such combination?

Perhaps it would be useful to remove the requirement for an implicit
vowel from the definition of an alphasyllabary.

Bill Bright's definition in the introduction to the Devanagari section
of WWS contains no requirement for there to be an implicit vowel.

Richard.

.

Relevant Pages

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