--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"

> Are the French and Italians told they are learning a syllabary

rather

> than an alphabet? I think not.

I don't suppose they are. There are certainly some sociological
factors at play and they would be interesting to explore. HOwever, i
would rather start with a little more understanding of the social
climate among missionaries in the first half of the 19th century.

Evans mission superiors criticized his use of the sllabary. And his
English educated half-welsh, half-Mississauga coworker, Peter Jones
did not seem to go along with the syllabics either.

It was only after Evans moved north into a more remote area that he
was able to print up a hymnbook using the syllabary. Through this
hymnbook a certain number of Cree learned the syllabics and after
that it had a life of its own. It was transmitted by the Cree from
there on in. Henry steinauer, a New York (Cazenova seminary)
educated Cree, did much of the Bible translation into Cree later.

So his syllabary wasn't really the thing to do but still the idea
ofa syllabary must have been floating around at the time -it was one
of the options.


It seems as if there were quite a few syllabaries that developed in
Africa in the 19th century as well. I am in many ways more concerned
about the fact that from the time of Isaac Taylor (1883) right up
until Sampson (1985) westerners have suppressed literacy in a
syllabic system in favour of the alphabet.

So my question is not so much 'why a syllabary?' as 'why not a
syllabary?' Check out this little story about the Mende syllabary.
Linguists, educators and missionaries have consistently tried to
replace syllabic systems where they were recent syllabaries and not
supported institutionally.

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/mende.htm

Before the end of the 19th century a missionary might use a syllary
but after that, oh no, an alphabet was most suited to literacy, that
was the credo. I am not refering to the attempt to suppress the
native languages. That is separate. In the 1960's and 70's
linguists were really interested in reviving and supporting native
languages. However, they honestly felt that it would all be so much
easier if everyone used the alphabet. Easier for whom?

IMHO 1880 to 1980 was the century of the alphabet. The preceding
century was the century of the syllabary, decoding syllabaries,
learning syllabic systems of India and the innovation of
neosyllabaries, both pure and compositional syllabic notation.


(What's become of Marco?)


I don't know. I miss him. I was hoping a while back that he would
know about G.Vico, who wrote about writing systems in the early 18th
century.

Suzanne

It smacked

> to me of being a matter of presentation - factor 4 below. I

believe

> there are implications for the every day spelling, such as the
> omission of final consonants, though they were not omitted in the
> account of Potawatomi. Perhaps Buginese and most Philippine

babayin

> are useful parallels.
>
> In the latter case, there are issues with the virama introduced by

a

> Spaniard. /i/ and /u/ were represented by horizontal and vertical
> dashes, so he drew the virama as a cross. Some see this as a
> Christian imposition, and now object to it on those grounds

alone. A

> later introduction, in a form very similar to a deleting slash

through

> the plain letter, has had more success amongst those who use of the
> system is practical rather than antiquarian or posturing.
>
> > "Willard Walker argued that "acceptance [of a writing system] by

the

> > target population is contingent on four factors: 1) acceptance

of

> > the innovators and others associated with the program, 2)
> > recognition on the part of the native community that literacy is
> > useful enough or fun enough to be worthwhile, 3) the

acceptability

> > of the content of any literature produced, and 4) the

acceptability

> > of the writing system" (1969: 149).
>
> Richard.