suzmccarth wrote:

>
> --- 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.

I imagine the leading authority on syllabics (Cree and all its
subsequent developments) is the John Nichols who wrote the chapter in
WWS. He was known to Bill Bright, who is principally an Amerindianist.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...