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Re: Basque & Katzner's Languages of the World

From:John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Date:Wednesday, November 14, 2001, 22:56
Yoon Ha Lee wrote:

> It claims Korean "is the only true alphabet native > to the Far East," which I don't know if that's true
This is being discussed on the qalam@yahoogroups.com list right now. It's true if you believe that Hangul is an alphabet. Michael Everson says it is, because it represents vowels and consonants equally -- as opposed to abjads, which represent consonants either exclusively or primarily; abugidas, which represent consonants-with-implicit-vowel that can be overridden with a vowel sign; and syllabaries which represent syllables. Abjad examples: Arabic, Hebrew (though Yiddish writing is alphabetic); abugida examples: all Indic scripts, Ethiopic; syllabary examples: Cherokee, kana. Peter T. Daniels says it isn't an alphabet but a featural script like Gregg or Pitman shorthands or Shavian (or Tengwar, which is otherwise abjad-like), partly IMO because he is committed to the notion that only scripts descended from Greek (or stimulus-diffused from Greek-descended scripts) are alphabetic. Both Daniels and Bright are on qalam, BTW. -- Not to perambulate || John Cowan <jcowan@...> the corridors || http://www.reutershealth.com during the hours of repose || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan in the boots of ascension. \\ Sign in Austrian ski-resort hotel

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Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>