Re: Virama

Barry Garcia wrote:

>CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU writes:
>>
>>But the small circle above is _anunaasika_, the nasalizer mark.  What
>>about
>>a dot below for _viraama_?
>
>Ranaka uses it's own system for denoting dependent vowels etc. About 200
>years ago in their conworld, they did away with the old system that
>grantha used, and did things their own way) A dot below means /i/, so it
>cannot  go below for the virama (this is not odd, the Tagalog script uses
>a dot below to indicate o and u, and a dot above for e and i. It doesn't
>even have any of the marks for things like the virama, anusvara, etc.).
Hold your horses there Barry. AFAIK, a marker below a glyph to represent
/i/ does not occur in any Indic script. And believe me, I have seen a
lot of Indic scripts - enough to make the following generalizations about
a prototypical Indic vowel marking system (which even Tagalog follows):

   /a/  -  unmarked
   /i/  -  above a glyph
   /u/  -  below a glyph
   /a:/ -  after a glyph
   /e/  -  before a glyph (though variable, see NB below)
   /o/  -  combining the diacritics for /e/ and /a:/
   /ai/ -  two marks of /e/
   /au/ -  a variant of the marking for /o/

NB.: The marking for /e/ is the most varied among the Indic scripts. It
appears to have migrated to either a superscript or subscript position in
a number of Indic scripts. Something to do perhaps with how unfavorable
it is to have a prescripted diacritic.

The conscript for Boreanesian follows a similar pattern.:

   [@:] - unmarked
   [i:] - above
   [u:] - below
   [a:] - after
   [@i] - before
   [@u] - before and after (circumfix)
   [ai] - twice before
   [au] - before and twice after

The divergence from the prototypical pattern is due to the great
phonotactic difference from the Indian languages. The same can be
said for what accounts for the differences found in the Mainland
SEAsian scripts. Austronesian languages, OTOH, are not that different
from Indian languages phonotactically. And since (if I have not
misunderstood anything) Ranaka is a script for an Austronesian
language near India and a direct descendant of Grantha, then I'm not
at all convinced that Ranaka would diverge from the prototypical
pattern to such a great degree. Even Tagalog follows the same
prototypical pattern, and it is _not_ afterall a direct descendent
of Grantha.

>Also, IIRC, the nasalizer means /N/ right? if so, that won't work beause
>ranaka has it's own glyph for that.
Only in Island SEAsia. In Mainland SEAsia, it means a syllable final <m>.
In India, it just means a nasalized vowel. But since Ranaka would fall
under Island SEAsia, it should mean /N/ if it had it.

-kristian- 8)