Re: Abugidas (was: Chinese writing systems)

Nik Taylor wrote:
>
>John Cowan wrote:
> > I didn't give any such explanation: someone else did.  "Alphasyllabary"
> > has been applied in the past to both abugidas and abjads, and I do
> > consider it obsolete.
>
>Then, what about a system where some characters are alphabetic and some
>are syllabic?  For example, Tivets, a provisional descendant of
>Uatakassi, uses a script derived from the classic Kassi syllabry, but
>some of the characters have come to refer to single phonemes, such as
>/C/ or /tS/, while others are syllables, like /tu/, and still others can
>be alphabetic or syllabic depending on context, like the same character
>is used for /ta/ and syllable-final /ts/.  I'm not sure if there are any
>natscripts like that, but I would call that constructed script an
>alphasyllabry, since neither abjad nor abugida really describes it.
Are there signs for all kinds of syllables, or just for CV ones?

Eg, if you had a syllable /tuts/, would that necessarily be written TU-TS,
or could there be a unitary syllabographeme TUTS?

If alphasyllabary has an accepted, if counterintuitive, meaning then you
probably shouldn't be using it of Tivets writing. What about "syllabet"?


           Andreas

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