suzmccarth wrote:

>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
> wrote:
> >
> > 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?
>
> No but he could have represented the 7 vowels with 7(6) different
> modifiers as Amharic has. However, he used four orientations
> instead, so 4 long vowels and 3 short, in pairs. But surely a system
> with 7 different modifiers could have provided a possible
> representation of the language.

If in his analysis there had been 7 vowels, he would have used 7 graphic
distinctions.

Do you claim Arabic has six vowels, or (like Arabists) that it has three
vowels and length?

Amharic has 7 vowel _qualities_ and no length distinction (don't be
fooled by etymology and/or transliterations).
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...