Phags-pa Re: Unicode and Mandombe

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

>
> suzmccarth wrote:
>
> > I have been reading research on literacy in Canadian syllabics

for

> > years, and more recently the effects on literacy of Phags-pa, and
> > Hangul as well as Syllabics. All of them use orientation to some
> > extent. This does not impede literacy, on the contrary the
> > organization of alphabetic units into syllables is common to all
> > these scripts as well, and has had a more significant effect in

the

> > opposite direction.
> >
> > For Syllabics, Phags-pa and Hangul there was a well-recognized
> > positive effect on literacy. Unfortunately no one has yet found a
> > suitable way to write English in syllables to test whether it

would

> > have a positive effect on literacy in North America. However,

there

> > are always researchers who suspect that this would be the case.
>
> Hunh? Phags-pa was in use for less than a century (1269-1368 at the
> most), and evidence for it is meager. Mongolia tried reintroducing
> Mongolian script in 1989 or 91 or so, but it had been pretty well
> extirpated by Cyrillic, and they've apparently gone back to

Cyrillic

> now; could you be referring to the Mongolian revival?

I would hardly think of Mongolian (Uighur) as having any of the
attribues I am talking about - syllablic organization and the use of
different orientations as a acript device.

No, I was thinking of how Phags-pa was associated with the *intent*
of Kubilai Khan's government to establish literacy at the level of
the village and replace the bureaucratic Chinese examination system
with another method for generating literate subjects. (This was
definitely not in Mongolian (Uighur) script which the Chinese were
forbidden from learning.)

However, this is all very speculative - no need to point out that it
can't be defended very well - it is just an *asociation* in intent
between Phags-pa and literacy.

What is more interesting is the use of orientation as a device in
Phags-pa and Mandombe. In Phags-pa, there are 6 reversed consonants
which are separate letters with separate sound values. But, when
vowels are subjoined below a reversed consonant, the vowel reverses
without causing a change in sound value. The reversed vowels are
contextual variants.

While this is only a minor device in Phags-pa, since there are not
that many reversed consonants, it is a major device in Mandombe, and
one which I find esthetically attractive, in contrast to say klingon.

Suzanne