Re: Abugidas (was: Chinese writing systems)

John Cowan wrote:

> In an abugida, the basic written forms are consonants.
> When the consonant appears in its basic form, it is
> understood to be followed by a vowel, called the *inherent
> vowel*.  Exactly which vowel this is depends on the
> language, though it is often "short a".  To indicate the
> use of a different vowel, a "vowel sign" is placed above,
> below, before, or after the consonant (sometimes in
> multiple parts in different places), which overrides the
> inherent vowel.  A mark called a virama is used when there
> is no vowel at all.  The Ethiopic script, uniquely, writes
> its vowel marks attached to the consonant.
Hm. So the writing system, which Barry Garcia came up with
and I developed a bit further, would that be an abugida?
Or is it simply a syllabary?

Each syllable consists of two "letters", with a bar on top
of them, on which the vowel is written. If the vowel is /a/,
then there's just the bar, no other sign. There is a "null
sign" if the syllable is just a vowel. So,

- If the syllable is just a vowel, there are two null signs
  and the vowel bar on top.

- If the syllable is CV, then the first sign is the consonant
  sign, and the second is the null sign, plus the bar on top.

- If the syllable is CVC, then the first sign is C1 and the
  second sign is C2 and the vowel sign on top is the vowel
  in between.

Examples can be seen at:

http://home.swipnet.se/escape/vowels.jpg

http://home.swipnet.se/escape/consonants.jpg

http://home.swipnet.se/escape/example.jpg

||| daniel

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