--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
<richard.wordingham@...> wrote:

>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "suzmccarth"

<suzmccarth@...> wrote:>

>
> I don't see what the problem is.

James Fevrier used 'le neosyllabisme' for the Indic scripts and
Marcel Cohen for the recent syllabaries of Guess, Evans and
Pollard.

So I don't know whether it is possible to use the word in Cohen's
sense if it is, in fact, Fevrier's word.

However, I am not sure whose word it is and it normally wouldn't
matter but we are trying to be exact in our etymologies so here
goes.

Fevrier published in 1959 but it was a second edition - I have not
seen the first edition, 1948, nor have I seen it quoted. He readily
admits that the second edition includes additional material that
was not in the first.

Cohen says in his Ecriture (abrege), 1953, that his book "Grande
Invention de l'Ecriture", 1958, in which he uses the word
neosyllabisme, was actually written in 1947 and was then at the
printer (in 1953). He started the book before the war but he
stopped to fight in the resistance.

So Fevrier's meaning is probably the one most recognized but I
find Cohen's writing more compelling. I would like to use the
word 'neosyllabisme' in Cohen's sense. I do not dispute that
Fevrier _might_ have used the word first but I don't know that.

>If you mean recently developed
> syllabaries,

I do mean the recent syllabaries.

>The biggest problem would be with the >taxonomy,
> especially as it may not be capturing any evolutionary

development.

This is the best part. Fevrier thought that the recent syllabaries
were "archaique and depasse" (sorry I am not on my own
computer and don't know where to find the accents here.) He
disapproved of them.

Cohen says that 'le neosyllabisme' "pourait avoir de l'avenir". He
was quite fascinated by them.

For Fevrier, I would argue, there was a unidirectional evolution.
For Cohen, I am not so sure. He talks about 'le syllabisme', then
'le syllabisme secondaire' of the Indic scripts and finally about 'le
neosyllabisme' of the recent syllabaries.

This makes me think that Cohen was not so firmly of the
evolutionary school. It makes me think of Vico's cursi e recursi -
the ascending spiral but also a return. I think of 'le syllabisme'
as Vico's poetic second stage. Vico, 1668 - 1744, was the one
who had the idea of the ascending and descending complexity of
language development.

The point is that for Cohen there was a 'syllabisme' . Do we
have a comparable expression in English? The syllabic mode?
This is quite important here in Canada where computers were a
serious threat to Cree Syllabics until the late 80's. That was
really when things turned around for 'aboriginal' scripts. (I say
'aboriginal' advisedly because there is a strong sense of
ownership among the First Nations concerning this script. )

Suzanne