--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "suzmccarth" <suzmccarth@...> wrote:

>
> Richard,
>
> It is much easier to think about Syllabics in general, if you think
> of them as basically reflections first, and realize that they
> only 'look like' rotations because some of the shapes are symmetric.

I find it easier to rotate and then flip vertically than to reflect in
a diagonal axis. This may simply be because it is easier to reflect
about an approximate axis of symmetry.

> People really want to use their writing systems according to their
> own personal style. You are trying to think about the reflections
> too logically!

I was trying to work out if Syllabics 'vowels' would have yielded
general transformation operations if Syllabics had been encoded that
way. (That would have forced an encoding as an abugida.) This is not
so for Cree vowels and is doubtful for Carrier vowels. It would work
for Blackfoot vowels, provided that the vowelless forms were not taken
as basic (in which case '=' would have to be added as a 'syllabic'!)
and they weren't identified with the Cree vowels with corresponding
shapes.

Richard.