Re: USAGE: Abugidas
| From: | Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Thursday, January 29, 2004, 20:51 |
|---|
At 15:29 28.1.2004, John Cowan wrote:
> > I've, BTW, always been somewhat mystified that someone ever came on the
> > idea of having graphemic zero indicate /a/ (or /O/ and so on depending
> > on language) rather than phonemic zero. In a language like Sanskrit
> > it may perhaps save typing, but it's certainly the last idea I would
> > have stumbled on. People are weird.
>
>Well, Tengwar (as used to spell Quenya, anyhow) is an abjad with mandatory
>vowel marks, but the step from that to an abugida is small, as JRRT
>himself indicates rather offhandedly in a footnote:
Remember that Brahmi script was invented not for Sanskrit,
but for Middle IndoAryan, where the set of possible consonant
clusters was very restricted -- as in Quenya. Also a good
number of the possible ambiguous readings are eliminated by
the use of a diacritic for a syllable-final nasal(ization)
in Brahmi.
/BP 8^)
--
B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@melroch.se (delete X)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~__
A h-ammen ledin i phith! \ \
__ ____ ____ _____________ ____ __ __ __ / /
\ \/___ \\__ \ /___ _____/\ \\__ \\ \ \ \\ \ / /
/ / / / / \ / /Melroch\ \_/ // / / // / / /
/ /___/ /_ / /\ \ / /'Aestan ~\_ // /__/ // /__/ /
/_________//_/ \_\/ /Eowine __ / / \___/\_\\___/\_\
Gwaedhvenn Angeliniel\ \______/ /a/ /_h-adar Merthol naun
~~~~~~~~~Kuinondil~~~\________/~~\__/~~~Noolendur~~~~~~
|| Lenda lenda pellalenda pellatellenda kuivie aiya! ||
"A coincidence, as we say in Middle-Earth" (JRR Tolkien)