Re: syllabary

On Monday 13 January 2003 9:43 am, Eamon Graham wrote:
> "A. Ingram" wrote:
> > I'm thinking of making a syllabary for my conlang.  Has anyone else used
> > this method for scripting?  What are some of the drawbacks and
> > advantages? Somehow I feel that I will have to define all the possible
> > phonological possiblilities before I can actually begin using it.  This
> > makes me think that it will be a limiting factor.  I know that the
> > Cherokee Indian Nation uses one and I've even seen it.  I'm probably just
> > missing something.
>
> Syllabaries are great but as has already been pointed out they're
> usually for very specific phonologies.  Even the Cherokee system
> doesn't exactly work: final vowels are usually dropped in speech,
> and there are a couple other irregularities.
>
> You might split the difference and work with an idea similar to that
> of Indic scripts: make each character have an inherent vowel (/a/
> perhaps), the vowel can be changed by putting a mark over or below
> it, and another mark gets rid of the vowel completely but keeps the
> consonant.
>
> Or you can use Hangul. :)  That's quite popular with East Asian
> Conlangs, as its a very efficient script.
>
> If you don't already know it, there's a good site about scripts that
> might give you some ideas:
>
>
I have a thing for Devanagari, and other such scripts..

They have the efficiency of a syllabary combined with the versatility of an
alphabet, and they have a great way of doing consonant clusters...