Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> Marco Cimarosti wrote:
> > > BTW, what special characters are needed in Hawai'ian?
> > This site gives you the repertoire of "special" character needed for
> > a lot of languages written in Latin or Cyrillic alphabets.
>
> I hope it told you you were right the first time!

No (see
http://www.eki.ee/letter/chardata.cgi?lang=hawa+Hawaiian&script=latin). It
also lists vowels a, e, i, o with a macron (to mark, I guess, long vowels)
and Unicode character U+02BB("MODIFIER LETTER TURNED COMMA"). The latter is
simply a sort of apostrophe, looking like an opening single quote.

But I think this database is designed with defining optimal computer
coverage in mind. It does not explain the usage scope of these characters,
or whether there are alternate orthographies that avoids them.

What I noticed with my own language, Italian, is that the database defines
as "required" a at least a character, "ó", that almost never occurs in
everyday orthography (it is only to be seen on dictionaries, and does not
even exist on Italian keyboards).

But, of course, one may wish to write a dictionary on a computer...

_ Marco

Marco Cimarosti wrote:

> --- In qalam@egroups.com, "Marco Cimarosti" <Marco.Cimarosti@i...>
> wrote:
> > BTW, what special characters are needed in Hawai'ian?
>
> Sorry to answer my own question, but I realized afterwords that I
> knew where to find the answer:
>
>    http://www.eki.ee/letter/
>
> This site gives you the repertoire of "special" character needed for
> a lot of languages written in Latin or Cyrillic alphabets.

I hope it told you you were right the first time!
--
Peter T. Daniels     grammatim@...

--- In qalam@egroups.com, "Marco Cimarosti" <Marco.Cimarosti@i...>
wrote:
> BTW, what special characters are needed in Hawai'ian?

Sorry to answer my own question, but I realized afterwords that I
knew where to find the answer:

    http://www.eki.ee/letter/

This site gives you the repertoire of "special" character needed for
a lot of languages written in Latin or Cyrillic alphabets.

_ Marco

--- In qalam@egroups.com, Robert Wheelock <rob_wheel12@y...> wrote:
> Jörg Knappen has his *African Computer*
> encoding scheme for African native languages that also
> serves Maltese, Sámi, &—perhaps—Hawai'ian!

BTW, what special characters are needed in Hawai'ian?

I thought that this language just used a subset of the "English"
alphabet, but my impression comes from a very old "Learn It Yourself"
book, that perhaps displays an obsolete orthography.

_ Marco

Hello!
I'm well aware that phonic/native-type letters are
within UniCode, but I also know that there're (at
least) *2* separate font encoding codepages for the
*IPA* alone—the most well known one is (perhaps) the
IPA-SAM system; another scheme's described in a 3-page
.PDF file from a website (probably a printer company's
site, or somewhere).  The SIL—& a few others—have
their own IPA encoding schemes, too.  As for native
orthographies, Jörg Knappen has his *African Computer*
encoding scheme for African native languages that also
serves Maltese, Sámi, &—perhaps—Hawai'ian!
As for IPA fonts, the lowercase <g> has its
'sans-serif-like' look, the numerals are replaced by
(mostly) vowel symbols, the highercase letters
replaced by more symbols (IE.:  <@> is shwa
[turned-e], <J> is anyo [left-tailed-n], <X> is a
Greek khi, & <€> [<ALT<>0128>] appears as implosive-b
[hooktop-b], ...); a good part of the high-ANSI area
has overstruck accents & tone symbols.
Thank You!

Robert Lloyd Wheelock



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On 09/04/2000 01:42:58 PM Robert Wheelock wrote:

>Hello!  A while back, I came across a codepage for the
>IPA phonic alphabet (which is usually lowercase
>unicasal) which had a 3-page (I think) .PDF file to
>download (which had the codepage table for IPA that
>would be the MS-Windows standard [or very close to
>it]).  Would you know of where to look for it on the
>I-NET?  Would you have a copy of that selfsame .PDF
>file yourself?  How about native systems (languages in
>Africa, Asia, Latin America, Oceania, ...)?
>Thank You!

Robert:

This question would probably be more suited to the Unicode list than to
this list, but I'll comment here anyway. There is no standard 8-bit
codepage for IPA, including from MS. The SIL IPA93 fonts are probably the
most widely used IPA fonts, and so might be considered by some as a de
facto standard. I believe if you download them from the SIL site
(www.sil.org) you'll find documentation that gives the codepage. As for
minority languages from Africa, etc. again, there are no standard
codepages; AFAIK, in most cases there aren't even de facto standards.
Eventually, I hope to be able to document codepages that have been created
for use within SIL for such languages, but I don't yet have much info on
that.


- Peter


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Constable

Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA
Tel: +1 972 708 7485
E-mail: <peter_constable@...>

Magliano disc:

Emeline Richardson, "An Archaeological Introduction to the Etruscan
Language," in Larissa Bonfante, ed., Etruscan Life and Afterlife. A
Handbook of Etruscan Studies (Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI
1986) 218-219, fig. VII-7, with refs.

Robert Wheelock wrote:
> Hello!  A while back, I came across a codepage for the
> IPA phonic alphabet (which is usually lowercase
> unicasal) which had a 3-page (I think) .PDF file to
> download (which had the codepage table for IPA that
> would be the MS-Windows standard [or very close to
> it]).  Would you know of where to look for it on the
> I-NET?  Would you have a copy of that selfsame .PDF
> file yourself?  How about native systems (languages in
> Africa, Asia, Latin America, Oceania, ...)?

I may be wrong, but I think the only character set that includes IPA special
characters is Unicode (http://www.unicode.org), an encoding standard that
covers most (or all?) modern scripts used in the world.

On the Unicode site, there is a PDF file for each "block" (roughly
representing an alphabet), so maybe the file you remember was the one for
the Unicode IPA block (see in http://charts.unicode.org/). This would also
match your recall that it was the "MS-Windows standard": Unicode is in fact
the native encoding of Windows NT and other Microsoft operating systems.

I think that, before Unicode, IPA on computers was used mainly though "font
encoding". i.e.: you type in your text in a look-alike ASCII representation,
but using a special font where some letters have an "IPA look". E.g., you
type "[tSima'rOsti]" but, in your font, the capital "S" looks like an IPA
sh, capital "O" looks like an IPA open o (= upside down "c"), etc.

These "font encodings" are often an attempt to "beautify" the IPA look-alike
approximations that are used in e-mails and news groups (see, e.g.,
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Evan_Kirshenbaum/IPA/faq.html).

_ Marco

>Hello!  A while back, I came across a codepage for the
        IPA phonic alphabet (which is usually lowercase
        unicasal) which had a 3-page (I think) .PDF file to
        download (which had the codepage table for IPA that
        would be the MS-Windows standard [or very close to
        it]).  Would you know of where to look for it on the
        I-NET?

        I don't think there is an official "codepage" that covers IPA.
        There are, however, a number of fonts available that are used
        in linguistic research. One such is available freely at
        http://www.sil.org/computing/fonts/Encore-ipa.html.

        Regards,
        Bob

Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> You probably should look for a Classics list or newsgroup to ask.

Perhaps I was slightly off topic? Well I admit that questions 2-7 have
little to do with "writing systems". So I will go on some list about
archaeology and museums (mmm... or is it "musea"?).

But I think that questions 1.x were actually about the Etruscan alphabet
(or, well, about my problems reading that particular example of the Etruscan
alphabet), so I will leave them on this list.

> > 1) Where can I find info about this document (web sites,
> books, articles)?
> >
> > 1.a) Where can I find a decent photograph of both sides
> (good enough to read
> > the text), or a readable reproduction?
> >
> > 1.b) Where can I find a transcription of the text? (I did
> try myself, and
> > the result was filling up a block notes with doubts; it is a job for
> > experts...)

_ Marco

You probably should look for a Classics list or newsgroup to ask.

Marco.Cimarosti@... wrote:
>
>
> I would like to have some fresh info about an Etruscan document, the so
> called "Disco di Magliano".
>
> It is a lead disc found in Magliano, a town in Italy. Both sides are
> completely filled with an Etruscan inscription in the shape of a spiral,
> running from the border to the center.
>
> Here are my Q's:
>
> 1) Where can I find info about this document (web sites, books, articles)?
>
> 1.a) Where can I find a decent photograph of both sides (good enough to read
> the text), or a readable reproduction?
>
> 1.b) Where can I find a transcription of the text? (I did try myself, and
> the result was filling up a block notes with doubts; it is a job for
> experts...)
>
> 2) When has it been found, by whom, and where? (I found several Magliano's
> on the atlas of Italy)
>
> 3) What age does it date back?
>
> 4) Did any scholar (attempt to) translate it or parts of it? Or, however,
> what is known about the text?
>
> 5) Did any scholar (attempt to) explain why the document has that strange
> spyral format?
>
> 6) Is this the only known Etruscan document with a spiral text?
>
> 7) Where is the document now? Is it open to the public?
--
Peter T. Daniels     grammatim@...

Hello!  A while back, I came across a codepage for the
IPA phonic alphabet (which is usually lowercase
unicasal) which had a 3-page (I think) .PDF file to
download (which had the codepage table for IPA that
would be the MS-Windows standard [or very close to
it]).  Would you know of where to look for it on the
I-NET?  Would you have a copy of that selfsame .PDF
file yourself?  How about native systems (languages in
Africa, Asia, Latin America, Oceania, ...)?
Thank You!



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere!
http://mail.yahoo.com/

I would like to have some fresh info about an Etruscan document, the so
called "Disco di Magliano".

It is a lead disc found in Magliano, a town in Italy. Both sides are
completely filled with an Etruscan inscription in the shape of a spiral,
running from the border to the center.

Here are my Q's:

1) Where can I find info about this document (web sites, books, articles)?

1.a) Where can I find a decent photograph of both sides (good enough to read
the text), or a readable reproduction?

1.b) Where can I find a transcription of the text? (I did try myself, and
the result was filling up a block notes with doubts; it is a job for
experts...)

2) When has it been found, by whom, and where? (I found several Magliano's
on the atlas of Italy)

3) What age does it date back?

4) Did any scholar (attempt to) translate it or parts of it? Or, however,
what is known about the text?

5) Did any scholar (attempt to) explain why the document has that strange
spyral format?

6) Is this the only known Etruscan document with a spiral text?

7) Where is the document now? Is it open to the public?

Thanks for any help.

_ Marco

Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> BTW could someone tell us what this list is?

Qalam is "a mailing list about the writing systems of the world"
<http://www.egroups.com/group/qalam>. Nothing more and nothing less than
that.

I am the owner of Qalam, and the only person guilty for any problem with it.
I prefer to hide my identity behind the nickname "Seshat" (BTW, the Egyptian
goddess of writing) mainly because I don't want to spoil my reputation for
tolerance when I will have to show my wrath to spammers disturbing my
mailing list. (Moreover, my alter ego wishes to take part in the discussion
as any other member, with no annoying "aura of authority" on her head.)

The mailing list is open to people of all kinds, who share an interest in
the broad field of grammatology, as ye would say.

Qalam is hosted by eGroups <http://www.egroups.com/> (now part of Yahoo!),
"a free email group service that allows you to easily create and join email
groups" <http://www.egroups.com/info/features.html>. (BTW, as one may
expect, eGroups is "free" in the sense that we actually "pay" the service by
reading the commercial ads added on top of all our postings:-)

> Bill Bright and I received invitations to participate.

Only a handful of brave members discovered Qalam on their own, probably
browsing the eGroups indices.

Anybody else has been invited. Most members reacted to an open invitation
that was sent to the mailing list of the Unicode Consortium
<http://www.unicode.org/unicode/consortium/distlist.html>.

Ye and a few other well-known experts in the field have been (or are being)
invited personally.

Thank you for being here.

> I see that one needs to join egroups in order to access the websites,
> and I don't care to do that, since joining such a group inevitably
> results in increased spam.

Unsolicited mail is a nuisance for everybody, but eGroups has a firm policy
and a few interesting tools against it:

- Members' e-mail addresses are *obscured* on the web site. Have a look at
the web copy of your last message <http://www.egroups.com/message/qalam/23>,
and you'll see that the last part of your address is missing:
"grammatim@w...". The first part of your e-mail is enough for us to identify
you, but the gap at the end prevents "e-mail harvesting" software to put
collect your address.

- This also applies to any e-mail contained *within* the message body.
Yesterday, Professor Bright mentioned a third person's e-mail in his message
<http://www.egroups.com/message/qalam/22>, and this is what remains of it on
the web site: "lb11@i...".

2) The terms of service of eGroups prohibit spamming (see
<http://www.egroups.com/info/tos.html>,
<http://www.egroups.com/info/nospam.html>). All violations may be reported
to <abuse@egroups.com> (and I think they are quite harsh).

3) I configured the forum so that *only* registered Qalam members may post
messages. Strictly speaking, this does not prevent spamming or other
unwelcome behaviour. But, you see... One does it *once*, and I have the
means to kick him/her out *forever*!

You can actually access the Qalam website
(<http://www.egroups.com/group/qalam>), but not the database and links
sections (<http://www.egroups.com/database/qalam> and
<http://www.egroups.com/links/qalam>), because these are currently reserved
to eGroups members. (Ye and other people who subscribed by mail, using
<qalam-subscribe@egroups.com>, are members of Qalam, but *not* yet members
of eGroups).

You may register with eGroups through this page
<http://www.egroups.com/register?referer=%2Fmygroups>. It is free, and it
can be anonymous.

Notice that this should not expose you to more spam, because your e-mail is
just used as a sign-in id, and not seen by anybody.

Well, actually, it is not seen by anybody *apart* eGroups themselves... And,
in fact, eGroups may use your address to send you commercial information.
The good news is that they will only do so if you explicitly authorize them.
One of the last steps on the registration process prompts you to select
which commercial information you wish to receive. Simply make sure that *no*
box is checked, and you exclude all this "controlled spam".

I hope this helps.

Regards,
Seshat (Qalam owner)


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"Seal" is kufic Arabic, and "Stone" is an ordinary monumental Arabic
that could come from anywhere (and could be just about any Muslim
language, if it came from some very out-of-the-way place!).

BTW could someone tell us what this list is? Bill Bright and I received
invitations to participate.

I see that one needs to join egroups in order to access the websites,
and I don't care to do that, since joining such a group inevitably
results in increased spam.

Marco.Cimarosti@... wrote:
>
>
> Can anyone identify the scripts on these two pictures?
>
> A guy sent them to me more than a year ago, asking me (!) to identify the
> scripts.
>
> I looked up some books, and ventured to replay that <Stone.jpg> (a carved
> stone bough "somewhere in Asia") could have been an early form of Arabic,
> and that <Seal.jpg> (a metal piece of a book cover) could have been
> Nestorian, or some other Asian script of Aramaic ascent...
>
> That guy swallowed my haphazard explanations with a "thanks"... how big a
> blunder did I make, actually?
>
> Thanks.
> _ Marco
>
> <www.egroups.com/group/qalam>: world's writing systems.
> To unsubscribe: <qalam-unsubscribe@egroups.com>.
>
>     ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
>                              Name: Seal.jpg
>               Part 1.2       Type: JPEG Image (image/jpeg)
>                          Encoding: base64
>
>                              Name: Stone.jpg
>               Part 1.3       Type: JPEG Image (image/jpeg)
>                          Encoding: base64

--
Peter T. Daniels     grammatim@...

hi shaina; i don't know much about etruscan, but look at the article "the
scripts of italy" by larissa bonfante, in *the world's writing systems",
ed. by peter t. daniels and william bright, pp. 197-309 (NY: oxford u.
press, 1996). the sample etruscan inscription on p. 300 seems to show word
division regularly indicated by a raised dot.

the person who knows everything about etruscan is prof larissa bonfante,
classics dept, new york university, <lb11@...>. that's
"ell-bee-one-one."

>Hi, I have a couple of questions concerning Etruscan. The first one is whether
>or not there was a consistent method of separating words. The second question
>is: what was the structure of the Etruscan language (subject/ verb/ object,
>subject/ object verb, or something else entirely? I know it is a weird
>language to ask about, and I am aware that it is far from being fully
>understood, but I really need to find out more about it, and, even though I've
>managed to find a few glossaries and histories on-line, I haven't found an
>answer to these two questions. So if anyone here can help me, it will be
>greatly apreciated (I need as much information on that language as I can get
>right now).
>
>Thanks
>
>Shaina
--
William Bright
Professor Emeritus of Linguistics & Anthropology, UCLA
Professor Adjoint of Linguistics, University of Colorado, Boulder
Editor, Written Language and Literacy
Editor, Native American Placenames of the United States
1625 Mariposa Avenue, Boulder, CO 80302
Tel. 303-444-4274
FAX 303-413-0017
Email william.bright@...

William Bright's website: http://www.ncidc.org/bright

Good day to everybody.

Yesterday, I mindlessly wrote:
> Unluckily, members are *not* authorized to delete or modify
> existing entries. This annoying limitation is necessary to
> avoid the risk of vandalism. So if you realize that you made
> any mistake when adding an entry, please ask me
> (qalam-owner@egroups.com) to change or remove that entry.

Actually, this is only true for the Bibliography database. In the Links
section, everyone *can* freely edit their own entries, using the "pencil"
icon beside the link description (or delete it using the "X" icon).

Greetings,
Seshat (Qalam owner)


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Hi, I have a couple of questions concerning Etruscan. The first one is whether
or not there was a consistent method of separating words. The second question
is: what was the structure of the Etruscan language (subject/ verb/ object,
subject/ object verb, or something else entirely? I know it is a weird
language to ask about, and I am aware that it is far from being fully
understood, but I really need to find out more about it, and, even though I've
managed to find a few glossaries and histories on-line, I haven't found an
answer to these two questions. So if anyone here can help me, it will be
greatly apreciated (I need as much information on that language as I can get
right now).

Thanks

Shaina

Can anyone identify the scripts on these two pictures?

A guy sent them to me more than a year ago, asking me (!) to identify the
scripts.

I looked up some books, and ventured to replay that <Stone.jpg> (a carved
stone bough "somewhere in Asia") could have been an early form of Arabic,
and that <Seal.jpg> (a metal piece of a book cover) could have been
Nestorian, or some other Asian script of Aramaic ascent...

That guy swallowed my haphazard explanations with a "thanks"... how big a
blunder did I make, actually?

Thanks.
_ Marco

Marco Cimarosti wrote:

> E.g., I remember that, around the 1970's, the Irish script was
> considered an alphabet on its own, while today it is mostly
> considered a variant of the Latin alphabet (like, e.g., Italic). How
> did this happen? Or, on the other hand, I think that Cyrillic has
> been considered a variant of Greek for a long while. When did it
> start to be seen as an independent alphabet?

The Irish alphabet developed gradually and "naturally" out of the
preceding uncial and half-uncial varieties, but the Glagolitic and
Cyrillic scripts were invented all at once, on the basis of Greek models
but with the intention of being distinctive.

> To paraphrase Weinrich, perhaps a graphic variant becomes an alphabet
> when it starts to be used by the army?
--
Peter T. Daniels     grammatim@...

Good day to everybody.

Please notice that I just added to Qalam a *links* section and a
*bibliography*. So far, the two lists are almost empty; I just added a few
entries for works which had already been mentioned in Qalam, or whose
inclusion has been explicitly requested, or that are absolutely well known.

All members are free (and *invited*) to contribute new links and books.

Unluckily, members are *not* authorized to delete or modify existing
entries. This annoying limitation is necessary to avoid the risk of
vandalism. So if you realize that you made any mistake when adding an entry,
please ask me (qalam-owner@egroups.com) to change or remove that entry.

Thanks to Steven R. Loomis for suggesting the idea of the bibliographical
database.


*** The Links List

From the main page (http://www.egroups.com/group/qalam), click on "Links" to
reach the links section (http://www.egroups.com/links/qalam).

To add an entry, click on the "[Add Link]" command on top of the list.

Please, use the top folder only for very general links. In all other cases
try and locate an appropriate folder.

If no existing folder seems fit for your new link, you can click on the
"[Add Folder]" command to create a new one.


*** The Bibliography

From the main page (http://www.egroups.com/group/qalam), click on
"Database", to go in the databases section
(http://www.egroups.com/database/qalam), then click on "Bibliography" to
select the bibliographical database
(http://www.egroups.com/database/qalam?method=reportRows&tbl=1).

To add an entry, click on the "[Add Record]" command on top of the list.

Please remember to fill the field "Submitted by" with a recognizable id (you
name, or the first part of the e-mail address), so that I or other member
may contact you to ask further information about the entries you added.

Please, consider entering the data following the same style as for the
existing entries. Consistent conventions will make it easier to use the
bibliography when it will grow.

Note. If you don't have the book/journal at hand when you fill in your
entry, on-line book selling services (such as <http://www.amazon.com/>) can
be a handy help to find all the data you need (ISBN, etc.).

In the main databases section (http://www.egroups.com/database/qalam) you
also have a command to add new databases. You are free to use it but, if you
don't mind, I would prefer that, before doing so, you send a message to the
mailing list for discussing the new database with other members.


Greetings,
Seshat (Qalam owner)


P.S. Qalam has now 22 members: enough for two soccer teams! We have already
seen a few interesting postings, and I hope we will soon enjoy interesting
and instructive discussions.


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--- In qalam@egroups.com, "Steven Loomis" <srl@m...> wrote:
> I hear a lot of comments in the USA from people who speak in terms
> of "standard" versus "foreign" alphabets, meaning latin versus
> non-latin.

Lucky guy you are! I wish I'd someone talked about alphabets
here in Italy, even just to say a blunder.

>   Can anyone speak to if or how this perspective differs in other
> parts of the world?

The Latin script is also often called "English alphabet", especially
in Asia. The term is also used on most user interfaces on computer.
E.g., I have seen several Chinese and Thai software where the button
or menu command to switch the keyboard in Latin mode is labeled "E
(nglish)", "Ying(wen)", etc.

Sometimes "ASCII alphabet" is also heard in the computer field.

> Some alphabets are supersets or subsets, or have
> a large overlap (Serbian Cyrillic and Russian), how are these
> relationships perceived in everyday life?

I don't understand exctly what you mean, but I have a few questions
that are perhaps on the same line of thought.

When and how does it happen that the local variant of a script starts
to be considered a script on its own?

E.g., I remember that, around the 1970's, the Irish script was
considered an alphabet on its own, while today it is mostly
considered a variant of the Latin alphabet (like, e.g., Italic). How
did this happen? Or, on the other hand, I think that Cyrillic has
been considered a variant of Greek for a long while. When did it
start to be seen as an independent alphabet?

To paraphrase Weinrich, perhaps a graphic variant becomes an alphabet
when it starts to be used by the army?

Ciao.
_ Marco

--- In qalam@egroups.com, "John Hudson" <tiro@t...> wrote:
> --- In qalam@egroups.com, "Steven Loomis" <srl@m...> wrote:
> > I hear a lot of comments in the USA from people who speak in
terms
> of
> > "standard" versus "foreign" alphabets, meaning latin versus
> > non-latin.   For example, "Oh good, Maltese is written using
> > the normal [sic] alphabet." (Even though non-English letters are
> > used.)
>
> This is similar to the notion, held by many North Americans I have
> met, that only foreigners have accents. I have not encountered this
> quite so often lately, but when I first moved to Canada people
would
> say 'Oh, you have an accent!' I'd grown up in Wales where it was
> commonly understood that everyone has an accent.
>
> I think both notions -- that only foreigners have accents and the
> Latin alphabet is the 'normal' one -- are simply symptoms of
> ignorance and poor education. Once you explain to someone what an
> accent is, or what an alphabet is, and expose them to something of
> the diversity of language, both spoken and written, it is
impossible
> for them to maintain the errant notions.

I suppose to some degree its a question of location, of where they
live, and the diversity of languages used in the area.

Here in various parts of Melbourne, Australia, its common for me to
walk down the street and see signs in shops and banks in a variety of
langauges and scripts. Its all just part of the streetscape.

hi marco; i don't think brahmi (or its sister script kharosti), appearing
in numerous stone inscriptions by order of the emperor ashoka, had a
viraama, but like the modern indic scripts descended from it, it did have
some conjunct symbols for writing consonant clusters. see table 30.8 on pl.
376 of richard g. salomon, "brahmi and kharosthi", in *the world's writing
systems*, ed. by peter d. daniels and william bright, pp. 373-83 (new york:
oxford u. press, 1996).
cheers; bill
--
William Bright
Professor Emeritus of Linguistics & Anthropology, UCLA
Professor Adjoint of Linguistics, University of Colorado, Boulder
Editor, Written Language and Literacy
Editor, Native American Placenames of the United States
1625 Mariposa Avenue, Boulder, CO 80302
Tel. 303-444-4274
FAX 303-413-0017
Email william.bright@...

William Bright's website: http://www.ncidc.org/bright

--- In qalam@egroups.com, "Steven Loomis" <srl@m...> wrote:
> I hear a lot of comments in the USA from people who speak in terms
of
> "standard" versus "foreign" alphabets, meaning latin versus
> non-latin.   For example, "Oh good, Maltese is written using
> the normal [sic] alphabet." (Even though non-English letters are
> used.)

This is similar to the notion, held by many North Americans I have
met, that only foreigners have accents. I have not encountered this
quite so often lately, but when I first moved to Canada people would
say 'Oh, you have an accent!' I'd grown up in Wales where it was
commonly understood that everyone has an accent.

I think both notions -- that only foreigners have accents and the
Latin alphabet is the 'normal' one -- are simply symptoms of
ignorance and poor education. Once you explain to someone what an
accent is, or what an alphabet is, and expose them to something of
the diversity of language, both spoken and written, it is impossible
for them to maintain the errant notions.

I hear a lot of comments in the USA from people who speak in terms of
"standard" versus "foreign" alphabets, meaning latin versus
non-latin.   For example, "Oh good, Maltese is written using
the normal [sic] alphabet." (Even though non-English letters are
used.)

   Can anyone speak to if or how this perspective differs in other
parts of the world?   Some alphabets are supersets or subsets, or have
a large overlap (Serbian Cyrillic and Russian), how are these
relationships perceived in everyday life?

Thanks,
  -steven

Hallo to everybody.

I have a question about the Brahmi alphabet (the one used on the famous
Ashoka's stone).

I understand that consonant letters had an "implicit" vowel: [a]. It also
add a set of "diacritics" to be added to base consonants to indicate vowels
different from [a].

So far so good, as this is consistent with the modern Indian alphabets that
derived from Brahmi.


But how did it indicate a consonant *not* followed by *any* vowel?


Modern Indian alphabets either use a sign called virama (or halant) or use
"consonant conjuncts" (ligatures formed by pieces of the regular consonant
letters). But I could find nothing like that for Brahmi (I just tried on the
"Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems" by F. Coulmas).

I hope the question is clear; sorry if I have messed up with terminology.

_ Marco Cimarosti (Italy)

On 08/29/2000 11:23:50 AM william bright wrote:

> i'd like to call attention to the journal i edit, *written language and
>literacy*...

I've gotten this since it started, and there have been a number of
interesting articles.



- Peter


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Constable

Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA
Tel: +1 972 708 7485
E-mail: <peter_constable@...>

i'd like to call attention to the journal i edit, *written language and
literacy*, published in amsterdam by benjamins, ISSN 1387-6732. it's
published twice a year. the first issue of volume 3, for 2000, has been
delayed in distribution, but should be out any day now. the yearly
subscription rate is NLG (dutch guilders) 190 for institutions, NLG 96
(about US$ 48) for individuals. for further information, contact me.

on thurs 7 sept, at the 17th international unicode conference in san josé,
california, i will deliver the keynote address with the topic "The
alphabet: A tyrant?"
--
William Bright
Professor Emeritus of Linguistics & Anthropology, UCLA
Professor Adjoint of Linguistics, University of Colorado, Boulder
Editor, Written Language and Literacy
Editor, Native American Placenames of the United States
1625 Mariposa Avenue, Boulder, CO 80302
Tel. 303-444-4274
FAX 303-413-0017
Email william.bright@...

William Bright's website: http://www.ncidc.org/bright

Hallo.

The Qalam forum is now officially open to subscriptions.

Qalam is about *writing systems*, a fascinating topic about which I
hope to read soon your interesting opinions, questions, answers,
and (polite) discussions.

Regards,
Seshat (Qalam owner)