Richard Wordingham wrote:

>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "suzmccarth" <suzmccarth@...> wrote:
> > --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
> > <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
> > > --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Jason Glavy" <jglavy@...> wrote:
>
> > > > Please confirm that the Potawatomi syllabary at this URL is in
> > error
> > > as you
> > > > say.
> > >
> > > I think greater heed should have been paid to Suzanne's smilie.
> >
> > I was only half-joking . Of course, it is the roman alphabet
> > arranged in syllables. (For those for whom this was a non-functional
> > link.)
> >
> > They
> > > look like PR jobs to me:
> > >
> > > 'You can't handle a paleface alphabet? OK, try a syllabary.
> > That's
> > > the Native American thing!'
> >
> > I am uncomfortable with that interpretation - did Evans think of it
> > as a native American thing? Was he familiar with the Cherokee
> > syllabary?
>
> I was referring to the 'syllabaries' based on the Roman alphabet which
> seem to be nothing more than alphabets.
>
> > Maybe there is no phonological voicing contrast. Syllable charts
> > were called syllbaries, that's all. It was a syllabary, in the other
> > sense of the word.
>
> I nearly said 'phonation contrast', but decided it might be too
> obscure. Potawatomi no more has a voicing contrast than does Mandarin
> Chinese. The contrast is between aspirated and unaspirated consonants.

Or, for that matter, than English, where both aspiration and tenseness
are the significant features. b d g are often scarcely or not voiced at
all.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...