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

> suzmccarth wrote:
> >
> > --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
> > >wrote:
>
> > > How did Taylor, <snip> "suppress" literacy? Isaac Taylor was
> > > a Durham (IIRC) cathedral canon and antiquarian.
> >
> > No, Suppress use of syllabics. If you believe that the alphabet

is

> > the most advanced then a syllabary must be less advanced.
>
> Does he believe the alphabet is the most advanced?

Do you know that he does _not_ say anything to indicate this? I
would be interested.

> noted that Taylor calls the Indian scripts "alphabets" (not
> "syllabaries" -- but he was _barely_ aware of how vowels were

notated

> and may not have realized even that some vowel symbols appear to

the

> left of, i.e. before, the consonant symbols for the consonants

that the

> vowels follow).

I don't have access to a copy of Isaac Taylor. Are you sure that he
was not aware of the position of the vowel notation? I looked at
P.Berger, 1891, again and found that he includes a very clear
description of the "inherent a", and he accurately describes the
position of each vowel notation,as well as the consonant conjuncts,
for Devanagari. He references Isaac Taylor frequently but does not
mention that he is adding to or contradicting anything T. says.

Berger classes Indic scripts as alphabets but I do see a precursor
of Fevrier and Cohen's neosyllabary in his writing.

I am back again to wondering what you meant when you said

"But these terms misleadingly suggest that the abugida is a subtype
or hybrid of alphabet or syllabary, a notion that has lead to
unfortunate historical/evolutionary notions about the history of
writing." WWS p.4

I have been reading writing system theory from a different
perspective and I am not at all sure what you intend here.
Particularly 'misleadingly' 'unfortunate' and 'evolutionary'.

> I'll see the History of Writing tomorrow

I hope you got to see it - I'll have to wait a while, the reference
library at UBC closes at 5:00 during spring hours.

Suzanne