Marco Cimarosti scripsit:

> Good day, qalamites.
>
> I am seeking for an example of an abjad which uses vowel diacritics
> (optionally, of course) but does *not* use matres lectionis.

Well, Tengwar had mandatory vowel points from the beginning, and later was
used in a fully alphabetic way, but never went through a _mater lectionis_
stage, FWIW. The vowel point for /a/ is sometimes omitted, but it would be
a stretch to call it an abugida.

AFAICS, the abjad was invented only once, like the alphabet (and unlike the
abugidas, which have at least two, perhaps three distinct origins).

--
Real FORTRAN programmers can program FORTRAN John Cowan
in any language. --Allen Brown jcowan@...