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

> suzmccarth wrote:
>
> Sequoyah's order for Cherokee is quite random (see WWS), likely
> reflecting the order he happened to invent the symbols in. The

standard

> syllabary chart (does it go back to Samuel Worcester?) is simply

in the

> order of the roman alphabet, consonants vertical, vowels

horizontal.

Yes, I have just been reading the Cherokee chapter and Worcester
helped out very early on. It is also interesting that, as you
suggested a few days ago, the syllabary is not systematic in its
representation of syllables. In the 'a' column, there are 15
consonants, most other columns have 12 and 'v' has 11.So it can
never be represented in such a complete matrix as Cree, Tamil and
Japanese(?). The Cherokee syllabary has never been modified from the
original 85 syllables. It significantly underrepresents and is also
non systematic in its organization.

On the other hand the Tamil 'syllabary' represents syllables that do
not exist phonologically. Cree has a big difference in frequency of
syllables and in any one lg/dlct there may be unused syllables but
across communities it is possible that all syllables are used at
some time. I'll try to check on that.

I find the static inventory of Cherokee is somewhat unusual, quite a
unique characteristic.

Suzanne