Re: "Motherless" abjads?

Marco Cimarosti wrote:

>
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > Virama is certainly not a defining feature, IMHO, as even
> > > the Ethiopic script (after which the term "abugida" was
> > coined) has no virama (although you don't match the "schwa"
> > vowel series with a virama).
> >
> > Eh?
>
> Just a random thought. One of the Ethiopic vowels is nominally /@/ (schwa),
> but in most cases this vowel is not pronounced, so I thought it could be
> seen as the Ethiopic equivalent of virama.
>
> But, admittedly, it would be a strange kind of virama, as it sometimes has a
> vowel sound...

Robert Hetzron, in an article he later disavowed, tried to show that
shwa isn't phonemic in Amharic. Of course that doesn't help with the
Ethiopic writing system, which was devised for Ge`ez.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...