Re: Reduced Vai Repertoire

At 14:10 +0000 2005-08-20, Richard Wordingham wrote:

>I don't believe this is BukElE's structure. What it reflects is
>that *later* distinctions only had to distinguish the consonants.
>If you look at the Ndole syllabary, you can seen smilarities within
>rows - BHI and BHU,

I think you're reaching there.

>BI and BU,

Maybe, but it seems superficial to me.

>FA, FU and FO,

Eh? I don't se *anything* in that horizontal grouping.

>TI and TU?,

Nor there.

>LO and LOO,

Seriously, as I go down the list I am looking at the Ndole syllabary
in Figure 5. You see a relationship between LO and LOO here?

>NJEE and JOO (still visible in modern YEE and YOO),

Figure 5 gives neither NJEE nor JOO.

>KI and KU,

I don't see it. A spiral and a circle?

>and no end of plausible relationships in the /w/-row.

I don't see it.

What I do see in the Ndole chart is still a set of vertical
relationships. WI-I, FA-VA, SA-ZA, KA-GA, KEE-JEE, KPOO-GBOO. I
really don't see those horizontal relationships you suggest, though.

>There's quite a leaping around in the similarity of KI, CI and CA.

Ndole has no C- series at all.

>(Is CA modern? Dalby surmised so.)

Massaquoi gives it.

>The parallel relationship between Ndole KEE and JEE is quite
>visible. This is the sort of relatinship Michael thinks is
>fundamental.

I think it's a feature, certainly. And became more of a feature as
time went on.

>However, these (KI-CI, KEE-JEE) are the longest range relationships
>I can see, and /k/ and /c/ need not be so very far apart before
>front vowels.

What Creswick 1867 gives for CI (he writes "Che" and KI ("Ke") do not
look alike.

>One could argue for ordering the syllables first by
>place-of-articulation/air-stream (grouping /l/ with the dental
>implosives as they sound similar), then by vowel, then manner of the
>consonant and finally by nasalisation of the vowel. (/h/, /w/, and
>/N/ would be grouped with vowel-initial.)

If you were inventing a ConScript, you might want to do that.

>However, for practical purposes it is probably easier not to order
>by place of articulation at the primary level. Primary ordering by
>vowel gives an ordering that is probably friendliest for using a
>list to identify symbols from their shapes.

That's why we did it.

>Neither helps with co-incidental similaries such as FA and CE or
>FOO, TA and KE.

Well, Vai isn't Tengwar.
--
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com