--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, Patrick Chew <patchew@...> wrote:

> While the Japanese kana systemmy have had some influence

from Sanskrit

> or Indic syllable-based writing, kana is *not* a descendent of

Sanskrit.

> The sources for the various kana are well documented, given that

they're

> all from Chinese characters. ....

> I would say that the fact the Japanese knew Chinese

characters to be

> monosyllabic and thusly not the best suited to a polysyllabic
> morphologically rich language used multiple Chinese characters

strung in

> a row to represent Japanese strings of syllables... (very very

very well

> documented from teh earliest period, cf. Manyoshu, etc., influence

from

> Korean Idu writing, etc.).

Is any of this supposed to precede the spread of Sanskrit to China
and Japan?

> The whole re-organization of the kana tables similar to that

of the

> Indic aksharas is a later development, given the famous indigenous
> "poem" i-ro-ha....

>These tables that have been posted about ... they're *not* the
>fanqie
> system, but are tabular representations of rhyme tables...
> The underlying system of these tables have received some

influence from

> Indic grammatology, but are *not* directly descended therefrom.
>
> Rhyme tables have their history back in the Tang dynasty.
>
> The insistent claim that these systems *had* to derive from

Indic

> sources is still not completely clear.
> *Prior* to the fanqie system, as well as the rhyme tables,

Sinitic

> scholars had already provided a system for categorizing Chinese
> characters... so...

On a Phonetic basis?

>
> what gives?

First, you know that I said maybe, so it is not *insistence*. Next,
you agree that the rhyming system in China and the appearance of
hiragana, possibly even Idu, is subsequent to a knowledge of
Sanskrit. "Influenced by" or "descendent from"? Let's just say they
are not independent developments. I don't see where my timeline is
out. And yes, I do know where the characters come from.

Suzanne