Re: Why Consonants?
| From: | Eric Christopherson <rakko@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, February 17, 2007, 6:00 |
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On Feb 16, 2007, at 1:03 PM, Leon Lin wrote:
>
> 3. Writing systems: abjads leave out vowels. Are there any systems
> that
> leave out consonants?
I remember reading on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Abugida) recently: "Pahawh Hmong is unusual in that, while the
inherent vowel /au/ is unwritten, so is the inherent consonant /k/.
For the syllable /kau/, which requires one or the other of the
inherent sounds to be overt, it is /au/ that is written. That is, a
Pahawh akshara appears to be a vowel with an inherent consonant
rather than the other way around." So, at least for /k/, that's
somewhat like what you're describing (although as I understand it you
mean leaving out all consonants, not just one "default" one).
On Feb 16, 2007, at 1:44 PM, Chris Peters wrote:
> One of Tolkien's language sketches (I think it was Orkish -- the
> language of the engraving on the One Ring) was meant to be
> syllabic, with VC structure instead of the normal CV (as in
> Japanese kana). That's the closest example I can think of.
There are lots of Australian Aboriginal languages with VC syllable
structure.
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