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

> suzmccarth wrote:
> >
> > I think that what we are talking about here is a system in which

all

> > vowels, including short a, were represented by a mark added to

the

> > consonant. This system *preceded* the system in which there is

an

> > inherent short 'a' vowel.
>
> NO, IT DID NOT.

How do we really know that the epigraphy using the form which makes
the short 'a' vowel explicit follows, rather than precedes, the one
where the short 'a' vowel is inherent?

>
> > So alphabet to abugida?? (And now that I
> > have surfed the net on this I find that Mahadevan's ideas were
> > accepted in the 70's, not so recent.)
>
> While you were "surfing the net," I was reading the relevant page

in

> Salomon's book.

I was hoping you could help me out there. Thank you.

> How do "they" -- since "they" apparently has or have no name --

I did post the link for reference to the rest of the article.

>account
> for the similarities to Kharoshthi? Or have "they" perhaps never

heard

> of Kharoshthi?

I certainly do see similarities in form to Kharoshthi but the idea
is different, four sets of matched pairs of long and short vowels
represented by adding marks to the consonant *and* long vowels
differentiated from short by a very short horizontal line or
overdot.

How do you account for this similarity to Cree? I mean if Cree was
invented out of thin air - why not Tamil?

Seriously though, I can place both James Evans and Miron Winslow in
New York with the same mission, the Methodist Episcopal Missionary
SOciety, *sometime* between 1833 and 1835. I think the Syllabics
first appeared in 1836. Pitman and Frere published their systems in
1837 so they are counted out by some as influences on Syllabics.

Miron Winslow published a Tamil - English dictionary in 1862.
However, in 1833 he returned to New York for 2 years after having
spent 15 years in Sri Lanka where he had already become fluent in
Tamil.

Evans was ordained into the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1833 and
this event was recorded in the NY Conference records. We do know
that around this time Evans took some Ojibway in Roman orthography
to NY to be published at the NY Conference headquaters. By 1836 he
had *invented* in Syllabics. I have no idea if Winslow and Evans met
but they could have. Winslow was quite well known at the time. His
hometown of Williston, VA was about 150 miles from Lachute, Quebec,
Evans hometown.

I don't necessarily *want* this to be true but there has been so
much speculation already that I see no harm in adding mine.

Suzanne

> Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...