Re: Origins of Cree and Tamil (was RE: Effect of the Medium (was: C

From: Peter T. Daniels
Message: 4100
Date: 2005-02-02

suzmccarth wrote:

> I wouldn't argue that there are 4 basic transformations, but it is a
> chicken and egg problem. Did Evans decide there were 4 pairs of
> vowels first and realize 4 visual transformations were a good match
> or did he have the idea of 4 transformations and then decide on the
> vowel pairs. Not that it matters. However, this is the only time in
> history, is it not, that such a writing system came together. Maybe
> all the pieces were intuitive but I don't see any reason not to look
> at the cultural influences of the time and become familiar with what
> Evans had seen elsewhere.

How's that? He invented a writing system involving 4 orientations and
then looked around for a language that had a tetrad of
something-or-other and figured Cree vowels were a good candidate?
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...

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