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

>>
> If you continue to refuse to recognize the huge difference between
> syllabaries and abugidas, then I will have no alternative but to

give

> you an F in my course. Tamil and Japanese are utterly different.

What course? I don't remember signing up.

What about the influence of Sanskrit on the Japanese writing
system? Maybe hiragana is a descendent of devanagiri, in the sense
that the inventors of hiragana had seen devanagiri and got the idea
of how to organize a syllabic system from that.

After all even the Chinese fanqie rhyming tables follow the
introduction of Buddhist text into China. Sometimese it is useful to
separate the form and structure of the individual written units from
the way they function within a system.


Suzanne