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

> suzmccarth wrote:
>
> > > In truth, no other kind of writing system has ever developed
>out of a
> > > syllabary.
> >
> > >
> > > (Which is why it's so important to recognize that abugidas are
>not
> > > syllabaries -- not that anything has developed out of them
>either
> > >except
> >
> > But in Fevrier and Cohen the alphabet-syllabaire or neosyllabary
> > develops out of the consoantal alphabet. It is a secondary

syllabry.

>
> No. Stop thinking of abugidas as syllabaries!
>
> They are utterly different from syllabaries, in that they reflect
>the
> prior discovery of the "segment" -- that things smaller than
>syllables,
> such as consonants and vowels, can be analyzed from the speech
>stream.

That is exactly what Fevrier and Cohen said about Indic scripts.
That always was the meaning of neosyllabism or secondary
syllabaries.

I cannot agree that Fevrier and Cohen's use of the term neosyllabary
or alphabet-syllabaire would in any way lead to the notion
of 'unidirectional' development.

That was a direct descendent of Taylor.

Here is Cohen on Cree. My thinking has been shaped by the
phrase "systematic graphic combinations" which are an expression of
alphabeticism. There is no question that these neosyllabaries are
based on alphabetic knowledge.


"On another track again, an Englishman by the name of John Evans,
working in Canada around 1841 on other languages of the Algonquin
group, acted as an inventor in creating from the ground up a
syllabary. … In this system the isolated vowels have a special sign
(a triangle in four different positions) the same for the consonants
without vowels. For the consonants with vowels there is a syllabic
layout (tracé) the vowel being suggested by the position of the
consonant. This original system met with a certain success: there
are still the gospels printed in this manner, in Cree, the first
langauge which was thus equiped, with many varieties, in Ojibway, in
Dene, or Slavey and in Eskimo (see below) and no doubt certain other
languages.

The interest in these experiments which these recent creations
constitute, of which the history is at least partially known, is
very great. One can by comparison with them imagine the paths of
certain ancient creations and evolutions.

Concerning the contacts of civilizations and certain of their
repercussions, the interest goes beyond the history of scripts and
can give by analogy indications on the modes of borrowing and the
remodelling of other techniques.

Especially remarkable are the mental processes of European
missionaries whose contacts with other populations have inspired
them to invention, from which a particular neosyllabism which could
have a future as a practical expression of alphabeticism.

In effect, if the latter does not appear to be able to be surpassed
as a system in the expression of the analysis of language, one sees
that
systematic graphic combinations can be substituted for the
capricious evolved variety of the inheritied letters of the past."

Page 215 – 219

Marcel Cohen
Grande Invention de L'Ecriture et son Evolution. 1958


Suzanne McCarthy