Re: Origin of the Sumerian language

On Wed, 18 Jun 2003 01:21:01 +0000, Richard Wordingham
<richard.wordingham@...> wrote:

>The term syllabic alphabet is used at www.omniglot.com for abugidas,

I've also seen "alphasyllabary".

>so Gerry's not alone in using this term. Incidentally, do abugidas
>have to have inherent vowels? Fully pointed Arabic doesn't have
>inherent vowels.

Which makes Arabic still basically an abjad (although extended with matres
lectionis and, optionally, vowel diacritics). The suku:n sign (which
indicates that _no_ vowel follows), however, is truly an abugida feature.

>Does ancient Egyptian fit into this classificatory scheme? It seems
>to be a mix of logographic and abjad.

Yes, that occurred to me too.


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...