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

>

But

> the Cree shapes are minimal and don't need to be explained by any

sort

> of influence -- especially since there's no correspondence between

sound

> and shape between the two schemes.

16 shapes are identical as well as the idea of using a marix to
teach the shapes. Obviously if the shapes are 4 rotations then a
matrix makes sense. But this is not a universal concept is it? Two
systems that are so alike in form - although not in other ways -
appear in the same decade!

>
> What sort of "influences"?

Technically, I am thinking of printing methods. In terms of
cultural influences, it is interesting to note that Korean was
taught incidentally as a pronunciation guide to the Hancha
characters in the 17th and 18th century, as a syllable chart in the
19th century, and as an alphabet in the first half of the 20th
century.

Somehow, the 19th century created a climate that was somewhat more
welcoming to the syllable than the century before or after. I feel
confident in saying that there was a trend at the time, a common
attitude or approach to literacy that promoted the role of the
syllable as a written unit, before it was "discovered" that the
alphabet was more "advanced" and the isoated phoneme
more "scientific".

Suzanne