--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "suzmccarth" <suzmccarth@...> wrote:

> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" >
>
> > Suzanne claimed that no more than 60 symbols were really used in
> > normal Vai writing and that the other 140 plus had been added by
> > linguists. (Personal context: Non-Cree linguists write Cree a

lot

> > more complicatedly than the Cree of Suzanne's acquaintance.)

Peter

> > Daniels asked how many rows she claimed they had added. I
> >supplied an
> > answer, but first provided the context that many rows were

almost

> >empty.

Here is the quote from J. Singler. WWS 597

"Most literates find the need for only forty to sixty characters. In
many ways the participants at the 1962 conference 'filled in the
blanks' creating symbols where none had existed before. Thus the
conference largely introduced into the writing system distinctions
between pairs of syllables beginning with s and z, f and v, wV and
V, and the palatal consonants c, j, nj, and y. Very often, a
contrast already existed between pairs of consonants with some
vowels; now it was extended to all seven vowels. Thus most of the
seeming systematicity in the shape of characters is artificial,
imposed in 1962 and never in fact accepted by script users.
(According to Welmers 1976: 11, the system did not oringinally
distinguish between b (implosive) and mb (implosive), d (implosive)
and nd (implosive), or [k] and [ng], these distinctions were only
intoriduced into the writing system around 1900.) A further point
about the relationship of the chart to ordinary use is that the
usual form of some charcters represents an inversion, reversal, or
turning of the version in the chart.

Sorry I lack a the ability to mark implosives properly.

In regards to Cree, John Nichols says,

"writers may use plain syllabics, indicating only the bare outline
of syllable structure, or pointed syllabics, adding diacritics all
the way up to phonmeic transcription, the full realization of which
is rare. Many writers put spaces or dots between words or prefixes,
others write all characters equally far apart with no word
division." WWS p. 602

Diacritics here refer to overdots, preaspiration and all finals.

The difference for Cree is that all the 'diacritics' were supplied
by Evans, in 1841, as optional pointing so the system remains more
or less unchanged. The Cree originally just adopted the basic
syllabic symbols for their own use. Some of those who became
educated in religious texts knew and used *some* pointing. But until
recently no one ever thought of pointing as more than optional and
contextual much like Hebrew.

Suzanne