suzmccarth wrote:

>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
> wrote:
>
> > In what way does Ethiopic "look like" Cree? In particular, in what
> way
> > does it look more like Cree than like Indic scripts?
>
> In Cree and Ethiopic, the CV unit is represented by one discrete
> visual symbol. In Tamil the CV unit is often written with 3 letters
> in a row. Tamil looks quite different from Ethiopic. The vowel
> modifiers look like one or two separate vowel letters. Some are
> ligatures but many are not.

Tamil being unusual among the Indian scripts in that; but even in Tamil,
the /u/ is realized in many ways.

The vowel objects don't look like separate letters because they _aren't_
separate letters. If you're interrupted while writing Tamil, would you
leave off with just a left-hand vowel piece and not finish the akshara
by writing the consonant? or even the consonant and the right-hand vowel
piece? Just as if you're interrupted in writing English, you wouldn't
leave a t uncrossed?
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...