From: Peter T. Daniels
Message: 2962
Date: 2004-07-11
>I imagine the leading authority on syllabics (Cree and all its
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, Michael Everson
> <everson@...> wrote:
> > At 09:52 -0400 2004-07-11, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >
> > >So someone took the two terms from me but made up their
> own definitions.
> > >What am I supposed to do about that?
> >
> > Copy the two terms in question to this list. Then propose
> amendments
> > to correct the definitions. Let's see if that produces something
> > actionable.
>
> First, I emailed somone in Unicode a year ago with a comment
> on 'ideographic 'and didn't get much of a reply.
>
> In 1990 I was hired by the Anglican diocese of Moosonee to
> evaluate why the status of Cree writing as a syllabary was being
> questioned. (Not by peter Daniels but others. ) Details on this
> later. I spent 6 years, talked to linguists in several provinces
> and territories, elders, bishops, chiefs, teachers, children,
> school bard, editors, etc, I asked professor Gleason. He did not
> recommend Daniels - no mention. I learned the phonology of
> three Cree dialects. We discussed Japanese, Vai, Cherokee,
> Ethiopic, Korean. We discussed Hebrew for weeks. At the end
> of 6 years it was decided that there was no reason to say that
> Cree did not belong in the primary category of syllabaries.
>
> I do not want to see this reopened with the Cree because of a
> term invented by someone who has a shaky and incomplete
> memory of Cree phonology from a course he took in the United
> States. I studied Language policy and writing systems at the
> University of Washingon.
>
> This was an in house investigation and I have no electronic
> document to offer right now.