From: Peter T. Daniels
Message: 403
Date: 2001-11-09
>Just as with the biological analogy, their ancestry is different.
> * Lars Marius Garshol
> |
> | I don't think anyone is advocating anything else, but at the same
> | time it is clear that they have something in common, which is that
> | the basic graphic units of both kinds of script denote syllables.
> | This sets them apart from alphabets and abjads, where the units
> | denote more basic phonetic units.
>
> * Peter T. Daniels
> |
> | That's like putting birds, bees, and bats together because they all
> | have wings.
>
> To some extent that is true, but birds and bees have fundamental
> differences of a kind that I am not sure abugidas and syllabaries do.
> What fundamental difference do you see that keep abugidas and
> syllabaries so far apart that they are not even allowed a common
> supertype below 'script'?
> * Lars Marius GarsholWho came up with the idiotic number 36? Surely more than that are
> |
> | Do you dispute that single-member classes are inherently suspect?
>
> * Peter T. Daniels
> |
> | Obviously not, since "alphabet" appears in my system.
>
> Did you mean "I obviously do dispute that single-member classes are
> suspect, because I have the class 'alphabet' in my system"?
>
> Do you really think that there is only one alphabet? If so, what is
> your response to the following statement:
>
> "Alphabet
>
> A type of writing system that denotes consonants and vowels with
> separate characters.
>
> There are 36 instances: Armenian, Asomtavruli, Avestan, Buryat,
> Carian, Cirth, Coptic script, Cyrillic, Deseret, Etruscan script,
> Georgian script, Geyinzi, Glagolithic, Gothic script, Greek, Latin
> script, Lycian, Lydian, Manchu, Mandaic script, Meroitic, Modern
> syriac, Mongolian clear script, Mongolian script, N'ko,
> Nusxa-xucuri, Ogham, Old Persian Cuneiform, Orkhon, Osmanya, Punic
> script, Runic, Shavian, Sidetic, Thaana, Utopian."
> Are these really all the same script? If not, what classes do the onesYou claim you have access to WWS, and you don't know?
> that are not _the_ alphabet belong to?
>
> Also, you refer to your system. Where is that defined? Which classes
> does it consist of? Is "alphasyllabary" included, for example?
> * Lars Marius Garshol--
> |
> | Does this mean that the members of these two classes are identical,
> | except that 'Phags pa is a member of one, and not of the other? If so,
> | which of the classes is it a member of, and why is it only a member of
> | one?
>
> * Peter T. Daniels
> |
> | It means that Bill's definition of "alphasyllabary" excludes hPags
> | pa, and my definition of "abugida" includes hPags pa. For me, it's
> | functional: the unmarked character includes the unmarked vowel. For
> | Bill, it's formal: the vowel indicators are physically different
> | from the consonant letters and can go anywhere, but hPags pa vowels
> | are barely distinguishable from consonants and only go after.
>
> OK. That makes sense.
>
> | (Clearly, my definition is better. :-) )
>
> Of course. :)