Re: Abugida: definition

Michael Everson wrote:

>
> Revised:
>
> Abugida. A writing system in which consonants are indicated by the
> base letters which have an inherent vowel, and in which other vowels
> are indicated by additional distinguishing marks of some kind
> modifying the base letter. The Ethiopic script is an abugida, as are
> the many scripts of South and Southeast Asia that are historically
> derived from the ancient Brahmi script. The term "abugida" is derived
> from the first four letters of the Semitic order of the letters of
> the Ethiopic script (ALF, BET, GAML, DANT); The order of vowels (-a
> -u -i -a) is that of the traditional vowel order in the first four
> columns of the Ethiopic syllable chart.
>
> Comment is invited.

The two a's are different, of course, as you indicated last time; either
the second one is marked long (which is misleading) or the first one is
marked for its quality.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...