Re: Reduced Vai Repertoire

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, Michael Everson <everson@...> wrote:

> At 17:54 +0000 2005-08-20, Richard Wordingham wrote:
>
> >Typo there - I should have said BHI and BHA.
>
> OK, I don't think you are making much sense. Your connections are

speculative, and I don't expect them to be systematic. The vertical
connection in the Ndole syllabary aren't either.

> I don't believe this is a real connection. The real connections are
> clear: FEE-VEE, FI-VI, FA-VA, FOO-VOO, FU-VI, FO-VO, FE-VE.

These look later (though 3 attested by 1849), are within the
labiodental group, and are formed by a diacritic - a short stroke.

> Look at the KP-MGB-GB series. Lots of vertical connections. No
> systematic horizontal connections at all.

KPE-GBE connection is old, was irregular (cross v. tee), and has been
remodelled using the double dot diacritic. 6 of the other 7
connections are applications of the double dot diacritic to mak
nasalisation - pre-nasalisation in 5 cases, and of the vowel in one
case. The status of the irregular KPU-GBU connection is unclear -
comparison of the Dalby and Ndole tables give me no confidence.
Finally, if the symbol is already dotted, nasalisation is indicated by
the short stroke diacritic.

I wonder if it is a coincidence that the triangle and square/diamond
occur in the same horizontal series. Not sure what to make of the
thrice-dashed triangle for GBO either.

> >> Figure 5 gives neither NJEE nor JOO.
> >
> >In the row labelled 'y' I see VAI SYLLABLE YA, VAI SYLLABLE NJEE, VAI
> >SYLLABLE CE and VAI SYLLABLE JOO.
>
> You don't see VAI SYLLABLE CE there. You see a character that in
> Ndole is used ambiguously for JE/NJE/YE. This glyph is now used for
> CE, and has modified to create other characters represent the others.

> >One might see the last two as VAI SYLLABLE YE and VAI SYLLABLE NJOO
> >- it seems that CE and YE may once have been glyph variants (Dalby's
> >1849 form seems to be YE), and Dalby's 1962 entry gives JOO and NJOO
> >as variants of one another.

> I think you're mixing levels and stages of the script

I had assumed that in Unicode terms the Book of Ndole would have been
written in the Vai script. Am I mistaken? If I am correct, which of
the proposed Vai Unicode characters do you believe the Book of Ndole
should be deemed to have used for /J\E/, /JJ\E/ and /jE/? From the
history you give, I would indeed say that the character is VAI
SYLLABLE CE. A similar and more difficult question goes for /jo/.

> > > >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.
> >
> >Wasn't the Vai script constructed?
>
> We aren't constructing it now, so we aren't at liberty to change it
> in the way that it seemed to me that you were suggesting.

I'm hardly changing anything. I'm just suggesting ordering the
symbols block by block. You are the one dismissing resemblances
between blocks. I'm putting initial /N/ with initial /h/, /w/ and
vowel-initial, but that is done in the 'conventional tabular form' of
VUP Figure 1. The ordering would go EE-WEEN, I to WIN, A to WAN, OO
to WOON, U to WUN, O to WON, E to WEN, PEE, BHEE, PI, BHI,... The
biggest objection to that is that it might require too high a degree
of linguistic sophistication.

Richard.