suzmccarth wrote:

>
> --- 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.

Janine Scancarelli published at least two major articles on the fit of
the syllabary to its language, in the green Southeast American Indian
Languages volume that used to be ubiquitous in Chicago's usedbook stores
and in the same volume as my [1988] 1992 article (we met at the
Milwaukee symposium). Only the latter is in her WWS bibliography. (She
gave up linguistics and became a lawyer.)

> 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.

It's associated primarily with the sacred sphere. One would not alter it
any more than one would alter Hebrew or Arabic script.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...