--- In
qalam@yahoogroups.com, Marco Cimarosti <marco.cimarosti@...>
wrote:
> Richard Wordingham wrote:
> > It can be argued that this is not quite true - that /i:/ is /ij/
> > and /u:/ is /uw/, in which case there is nothing impure about
these
> > two cases! The same applies to the classical diphthongs /ai/
> > and /au/.
> Notice that, in fully vowelled text, there is a subtle difference
between
> yaa' and waaw used to spell /j/ and /w/ and the same two letters
used to
> spell long vowels and diphthongs: in the former case, yaa' and
waaw carry a
> sukuun, in the second they don't.
That will do for a defence. My comment was an alert rather than an
objection.
> > ALEF for /Ä/ remains impure.
> I assume that alif used to represent a glottal stop, before it
became a mute
> carrier for the hamza. So, historically, you could perhaps
analyze /a:/ as
> /a/ + glottal stop.
It isn't quite as symmetric as that. /a:/ is the only long vowel
allowed before two consonants.
> OTOH, there are unmarked long /a:/'s, which are only indicated in
vowelled
> text by means of superscript alifs.
So it's an imperfect impure abjad! That's not a problem. It's a
detail, like YEH and WAW that bear hamza.
Richard.