--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
wrote:

> suzmccarth wrote:
> I assume that
> > much of what is said in this article, (see link) is established -

the

> > absence of the pulli, then pulli used as vowel lengthener, only 8
> > vowels instead of 12, etc, However, the lack of inherent short

medial

> > vowel is new, is that correct?
>
> Not credible.

Okay, early Tamil had 9 independent vowel forms - a, aa, i, ii, u,
uu, e, ee, o. However a/aa, u/uu, and e/ee were differentiated only
by adding a small mark or medial dot for the long vowel. Then the
e/ee distinction was lost leaving 8 vowels for 12 centuries.

Could this not point to an earlier script with only 4 or 5 vowels,
a/aa, (i/ii only dots anyway) u/uu, e/ee, o/oo?

It was only in the 18th century that the long e, long o and
diphthongs came to be represented. Was this a result of the
bilingual German - Tamil dictionaries/grammars and Bible translation
work?

It has been suggested that James Evans of the Cree syllabary had
seen the Tamil script before he worked among the Ojibway/Cree. I
don't know of any direct evidence. However, the Methodists were
involved in work in Tamil and had English translations of the German
Tamil grammars by the time Evans was in his early 20's.

I don't see how we could ever know for sure about this since I have
never heard that he mentioned Tamil in his letters - but it seems
possible.

Suzanne

> Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...