--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" >

> Suzanne claimed that no more than 60 symbols were really used in
> normal Vai writing and that the other 140 plus had been added by
> linguists. (Personal context: Non-Cree linguists write Cree a lot
> more complicatedly than the Cree of Suzanne's acquaintance.) Peter
> Daniels asked how many rows she claimed they had added. I
>supplied an
> answer, but first provided the context that many rows were almost
>empty.

I didn't respond by metionning the new rows to Peter since they are
all listed in Singler's chapter in WWS. John Nichols chapter on Cree
supplies a text in unpointed syllabics, as the usual one, which is
what I am used to, although I have seen certain elders and priests
use some pointed text as an examnple. Chris Harvey's website
languagegeek.com also supplies unpointed text as the more usual.

In unpointed Cree, the preaspirated consonants are not marked and
long vowels are not marked. Also syllable final consonants can be
unmarked but word final consonants are marked. While a few minimal
pairs exist at the lexical level, this is usually tolerable in any
writing system. Of course, some dialects have more phonemes than
others - that difference exists as well.

It is interesting to me that there is a similarity in the two
situations. I would like to hear Michael comment on what technical
complications are present when the 'chart' is so different from the
inventory which script users typically use. I can appreciate that
there is no easy answer.

Suzanne