> From: suzmccarth [mailto:suzmccarth@...]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 12:31 PM


> I think ... that Tamil should be thought of as a syllabary for some
> purposes at least because
>
> 1. there is persistent and enduring use of a syllable table
> 2. there is no abstract analysis of consonants without inherent
> vowels (very different than teaching reading with an alphabet)
> 3. the primary structral unit is considered by native speakers to be
> the akshara (not consonants and vowels)
> 4. there is constant visual shape only at the syllable level
> 5. there is syllabic editing
> 6. there is a syllabic IME

This ignores or trivializes some very important aspects of Indic
scripts. (And points 5 and 6, which have to do with computer
implementations of the script, not the script itself, are irrelevant.)
There is no question that the syllable / akshara are of great importance
in describing any of the Indic scripts. But to ignore the
syllable-internal segments and especially the relationship between
consonants / onsets the consonant letters would be a serious error.
Note, for instance, that the anusvars are symbols denoting purely
syllable rhyme, and one can make a very meaningful comparison e.g. of
scripts in which it represents a homorganic nasal vs. those in which it
represents just /ng/, or discuss the co-occurrence restriction that
anusvar cannot co-occur with a dependent vowel mark without making any
reference to syllable onsets.

Tamil and other Indic scripts are among those in which the syllable is
an important structural unit. That does not make these scripts
syllabaries. Some would call them abugidas, others, alpha-syllabaries;
but there is no convention that I know of by which they are considered
syllabaries.



> So I think that an abugida must somehow for some purposes fall
> within the greater category of syllabic writing systems

In reference to what I wrote in Nov 2001, I used "syllabic" to refer to
scripts in which the graphic symbolization corresponded to a
phonological syllable. Note that I distinguished "syllabic" and
"syllabary", the latter being a sub-type (along with abugida) of scripts
that are structurally "syllabic". I certainly had no intention of
suggesting a classification in which Tamil is considered a syllabary.



Peter Constable