suzmccarth wrote:

>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
> wrote:
> > suzmccarth wrote:
> > > 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?
> >
> > But we know exactly what the earlier script was: Brahmi.
>
> I was actually looking at Brahmi (but the chart said "evolution of
> Tamil script") when I described 8 vowels, 4 sets of long and short,
> with only a mark to differentiate. The 8 vowels then carried on
> into early Tamil with a slight variation. 12 vowels in the 18th
> century.
>
> What is the immediate precursor of Brahmi? something with 4 or 5
> vowels, I assume.

If we knew that, we would know something. Have you never looked at the
history of Indic writing?

Brahmi must have been inspired by Kharoshthi; Kharoshthi is
transparently adapted from Aramaic; Kharoshthi does not distinguish
vowels by length; Brahmi appears to be an application of Paninian
grammar to Kharoshthi.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...