At 20:06 -0500 2001-11-09, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

>The best example is Brahmi; I used "abugida" because (a) it fits into
>the sequence abjad/alphabet/... nicely and (b) no one could come up with
>a Sanskrit-based word that was manageable -- the best Bill could do was
>something that started with "akshara" and went on for a lot more
>syllables (something like 'garland of letters').

aksharasamâmnâya is glossed 'alphabet' in Monier-Williams.
Aksharanyâsa is 'an array of syllables or letters; the alphabet'.
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