Re: Alleged Syllabaries from Alphabets

suzmccarth wrote:

>
> --- 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.

I find nothing in the Epilogue (on evolution) to suggest that he thought
in such terms at all.

> > 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

"In both alphabets [i.e. what we call Brahmi and Kharosthi] the
fundamental vowel â, which in Indian languages constitutes thirty-five
per cent. of all the vowels, is not expressed at all, except at the
beginning of words, being regarded as inherent in the preceding
consonant. In both alphabets the other medial vowels are expressed by a
short stroke (-) attached to the covering consonant, and varying in
position according to the nature of the vowel to be denoted." (2:303
n.1)

There is nothing at all else on the writing of vowels although he has 60
more pages on Indian and Farther Indian alphabets.

> 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.

Why should he? You seem to want every scientific article to be
confrontational and argumentative.

I don't know what P. Berger 1891 may be; Taylor wrote in 1883. The 1899
edition includes a few pages of addenda.

> 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'.

They have the morpheme "syllab" in them.

> > 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.

Don't bother!
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...