Michael Everson wrote:

>
> At 09:33 +0100 2001-11-13, Lars Marius Garshol wrote:
>
> >| I would describe Syriac as an abjad
> >
> >In modern Syriac all vowels are written, all the time. That's why I
> >think it is an alphabet.
> >
> >| and Thaana as an alphabet.
> >
> >Peter Daniels thinks it is a compulsorily vowelized abjad, because the
> >vowel characters are not given equal status to the consonant
> >characters.
>
> Well, Hebrew is used as a alphabet to write Yiddish. Nd Ltn cn b sd t
> wrt Nglsh s n bjd f y wnt.

The Yiddish alphabet has considerably more letters than Hebrew.

BTW when you do one of those standard "English without vowels" things,
you should note initial vowels as well: 'nd ltn cn b sd t wrt (??)
'nglsh 's 'n 'bjd if y wnt.

> Syriac looks like pointed Arabic. The fili (vowels) in Thaana are
> much larger than any of the vowels in Arabic.... They feel a lot more
> like the vowel signs in Indic to me. I don't know what Peter means by
> "not given equal status".

I've never seen a Divehi manuscript. I don't know whether the vowels are
written as large as the type suggests!

They're supralinear, not included as equals among the consonant letters.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...