Peter Constable wrote:
>
> > From: qalam@yahoogroups.com [mailto:qalam@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
> Of
> > Peter T. Daniels
>
> > Here it is, Copy/Pasted from a Word document, so if there are any
> > diacritics or special characters, they'll go away.
>
> If you use Word on Windows with Unicode-conformant fonts such as those
> included with those software titles, then this problem doesn't occur.

Fine. Buy me a new computer.

And then make Windows do whatever it does as well as a Mac does.
--
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@...

> From: qalam@yahoogroups.com [mailto:qalam@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of
> Nicholas Bodley


> Even 98 SE doesn't do too badly; I have it loaded up with all the MS
> foreign-lang. support I can get, as well as Arial Unicode. (If
somebody
> needs that huge font, I might be able to help. It was downloadable
from a
> very-obscure Web site.)

If it was downloaded anywhere, it is violating the license agreement.



Peter Constable

On Thu, 04 Aug 2005 17:13:23 -0400, Peter T. Daniels
<grammatim@...> wrote:

> And then make Windows do whatever it does as well as a Mac does.

Apparently, a Mac can handle Unicode nicely, but it needs to be brought up
to date, if it is not, already. True?

With some patience, I expect one could "inherit" a nice Windows (really,
"x86") machine by working through Freecycle NYC. (Try <www.freecycle.org>
to start; nationwide.)

General rules are that you qualify by first having something to offer and
posting a message saying what it is, then arranging for the interested
party to pick it up. Seems that more than a few businesses and
professionals discard computers that could still work very well for
almosht anyone because too many people are close to clueless about how to
do a "housecleaning " in their machines. Instead , they buy new machines.
Horrifies me.

Try Linspire, btw. Nice (at least) for non-technical folk, and doesn't
require huge resources (superfast CPU, oodles of RAM and disk space.)

--
Nicholas Bodley  /*|*\ Waltham, Mass. (Not "MA")
The curious hermit -- autodidact and polymath
Hope for these times: Paul Rogat Loeb's book --
"The Impossible Will Take a Little While:..."

On Thu, 04 Aug 2005 17:46:08 -0400, Peter Constable
<petercon@...> wrote:

[re Arial Unicode: ]
> If it was downloaded anywhere, it is violating the license agreement.

Ah, yes. Thanks for reminding me. While it was still available, it was a
great boon.
It is rather outdated (Unicode 2?), at least in the version I have.

James Kass' Code 2000 font is another; he well deserves the $5. he asks.
<http://home.att.net/~jameskass/> Note Code 2001 and Code 2002, as well.

--
Nicholas Bodley  /*|*\ Waltham, Mass. (Not "MA")
The curious hermit -- autodidact and polymath
Hope for these times: Paul Rogat Loeb's book --
"The Impossible Will Take a Little While:..."

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@w...>  The
> other is quite serious. On the basis of a now mythic talk at the 1992
> LSA by William Poser, never published and (pers.comm.) never even to
>be
> written down, R claims that all scripts (except Yi) traditionally
>called
> syllabaries, including Japanese kana, Greek Linear B, and
>Mesopotamian
> cuneiform, are in fact moraic scripts. A moraic analysis of Japanese
> phonology is legitimate, but no phonological analysis of any Semitic
> language has justified the claim that e.g. Akkadian is written with a
> cuneiform moraography.

I just checked WWS and the chapter on African scripts for Vai. Singler
says 'the basic unit of the system is more acccurately the mora.'
This is because there is a syllabic nasal, and because long vowels,
optional, are marked by two separate symbols, and diphthongs also are
represented by two symbols.

By this definition of morae I think one could easily call Cree moraic,
not that I like it but I can see it coming. Although Nichols makes it
quite clear that unmarked Cree doesn't bother to represent long vowels
or finals in the middle of a word.

The other problem with Vai, and this is very well described by
Singler, is that the inventory has 200 symbols but Vai literates only
use 40 - 60. This is also similar to Cree. Linguists are creating
distinctions that were not formerly made.

Will this be a problem for Vai literates if they do ever use Vai on a
computer? Since only a few will use the new symbols, spelling will be
extremely diverse, sorting and searching will be a very different
matter than in a more standardized system. I don't really know if this
is a problem but I have seen a Cree literate look at a Cree
dictionary - mystified.

Suzanne

suzmccarth wrote:
>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@w...>  The
> > other is quite serious. On the basis of a now mythic talk at the 1992
> > LSA by William Poser, never published and (pers.comm.) never even to
> >be
> > written down, R claims that all scripts (except Yi) traditionally
> >called
> > syllabaries, including Japanese kana, Greek Linear B, and
> >Mesopotamian
> > cuneiform, are in fact moraic scripts. A moraic analysis of Japanese
> > phonology is legitimate, but no phonological analysis of any Semitic
> > language has justified the claim that e.g. Akkadian is written with a
> > cuneiform moraography.
>
> I just checked WWS and the chapter on African scripts for Vai. Singler
> says 'the basic unit of the system is more acccurately the mora.'
> This is because there is a syllabic nasal, and because long vowels,
> optional, are marked by two separate symbols, and diphthongs also are
> represented by two symbols.
>
> By this definition of morae I think one could easily call Cree moraic,
> not that I like it but I can see it coming. Although Nichols makes it
> quite clear that unmarked Cree doesn't bother to represent long vowels
> or finals in the middle of a word.

"Mora" is a technical term in phonological analysis, and it has nothing
to do with writing. To learn what it means, study Jim McCawley's MIT
dissertation on Japanese phonology (pub. Mouton, 1965 -- I think it's
called *The Phonological Component of a Grammar of Japanese*) or his
student, my classmate, Tim Vance's book on Japanese phonology.

> The other problem with Vai, and this is very well described by
> Singler, is that the inventory has 200 symbols but Vai literates only
> use 40 - 60. This is also similar to Cree. Linguists are creating
> distinctions that were not formerly made.

Nonsense. "Linguists" did not create 140-160 unneeded symbols.

> Will this be a problem for Vai literates if they do ever use Vai on a
> computer? Since only a few will use the new symbols, spelling will be
> extremely diverse, sorting and searching will be a very different
> matter than in a more standardized system. I don't really know if this
> is a problem but I have seen a Cree literate look at a Cree
> dictionary - mystified.

There are no "new" symbols in Vai.
--
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@...

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

> "Mora" is a technical term in phonological analysis, and it has
nothing
> to do with writing.

'Abugida' is the Ethiopic syllabary, and has nothing to do with
Devanagari.  Surely you (PTD) must understand the transference of terms!

> To learn what it means, study Jim McCawley's MIT
> dissertation on Japanese phonology (pub. Mouton, 1965 -- I think it's
> called *The Phonological Component of a Grammar of Japanese*) or his
> student, my classmate, Tim Vance's book on Japanese phonology.

Or a description of Greek or Lithuanian accentuation!

Richard.

Richard Wordingham wrote:
>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@w...> wrote:
>
> > "Mora" is a technical term in phonological analysis, and it has
> nothing
> > to do with writing.
>
> 'Abugida' is the Ethiopic syllabary, and has nothing to do with
> Devanagari.  Surely you (PTD) must understand the transference of terms!

"Abugida" was not a preexisting term in (any branch of) linguistics.

The analogy would run if someone decided to use "sandhi" to mean, say,
'ligature'.

> > To learn what it means, study Jim McCawley's MIT
> > dissertation on Japanese phonology (pub. Mouton, 1965 -- I think it's
> > called *The Phonological Component of a Grammar of Japanese*) or his
> > student, my classmate, Tim Vance's book on Japanese phonology.
>
> Or a description of Greek or Lithuanian accentuation!
--
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@...

--- Peter Constable <petercon@...> wrote:

> > From: qalam@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:qalam@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
> Of
> > Nicholas Bodley
>
>
> > Even 98 SE doesn't do too badly; I have it loaded
> > up with all the MS foreign-lang. support I can
> > get, as well as Arial Unicode. (If somebody
> > needs that huge font, I might be able to help. It
> > was downloadable from a very-obscure Web site.)
>
> If it was downloaded anywhere, it is violating the
> license agreement.

Actually a previous version was available with a
fairly liberal license as long as it was distributed
in exactly the package it was in. That exact package
has been available for some time - perhaps even on
sourceforge. Now distribution of the lone font is a
violation as is any newer version in any other
package.

Andrew Dunbar.

> Peter Constable
>


http://en.wiktionary.org -- http://linguaphile.sf.net/cgi-bin/translator.pl



___________________________________________________________
How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday
snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@w...>
wrote:
> suzmccarth wrote:
>> "Mora" is a technical term in phonological analysis, and it has
nothing
> to do with writing.

What do you think Singler means by 'mora' in his chapter?

>
> Nonsense. "Linguists" did not create 140-160 unneeded symbols.

Singler clearly states that at the 1962 conference, said to be
dominated by western trained Vai scholars, rather than by script
users, participants 'filled in the blanks creating symbols where
none had existed before.' 'Most literates find the need for only 40
to 60 characters'. 'The seeming systematicity in the shape of the
characters is 'artificial, imposed in 1962 and never in fact widely
accepted by script users.'

One can only assume that script users did not 'need' the extra
symbols invented first in 1900 and then in 1962. I think Singler's
analysis is quite honest and also typical of what was happening in
the 1960's with the 'rationalization' or 'phonemicization' of
scripts a la Pike.

Singler has further concerns about the relationship of the chart to
ordinary use.

I am trying to step back and consider fairly the implications of
this orthography conference and the many others which took place in
other groups. However, it is clear that it happened, for better or
worse.

> There are no "new" symbols in Vai.

'creating symbols where none had existed before.' What have I
missed? Rows were added in 1900 and 1962 according to Singler.

Suzanne

suzmccarth wrote:
>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@w...>
> wrote:
> > suzmccarth wrote:
> >> "Mora" is a technical term in phonological analysis, and it has
> nothing
> > to do with writing.
>
> What do you think Singler means by 'mora' in his chapter?

I assume he refers to a phonological analysis of the Vai language.

> > Nonsense. "Linguists" did not create 140-160 unneeded symbols.
>
> Singler clearly states that at the 1962 conference, said to be
> dominated by western trained Vai scholars, rather than by script
> users, participants 'filled in the blanks creating symbols where
> none had existed before.' 'Most literates find the need for only 40
> to 60 characters'. 'The seeming systematicity in the shape of the
> characters is 'artificial, imposed in 1962 and never in fact widely
> accepted by script users.'
>
> One can only assume that script users did not 'need' the extra
> symbols invented first in 1900 and then in 1962. I think Singler's
> analysis is quite honest and also typical of what was happening in
> the 1960's with the 'rationalization' or 'phonemicization' of
> scripts a la Pike.

I suggest you look at the evidence for what was created in the 1830s, as
gathered by e.g. Tuchscherer, or before him by Dalby in the early 1960s.

> Singler has further concerns about the relationship of the chart to
> ordinary use.
>
> I am trying to step back and consider fairly the implications of
> this orthography conference and the many others which took place in
> other groups. However, it is clear that it happened, for better or
> worse.
>
> > There are no "new" symbols in Vai.
>
> 'creating symbols where none had existed before.' What have I
> missed? Rows were added in 1900 and 1962 according to Singler.

How many?
--
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@...

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@w...>
wrote:
>
> I suggest you look at the evidence for what was created in the
1830s, as
> gathered by e.g. Tuchscherer, or before him by Dalby in the early
1960s.

Thanks. Yes, I am sure they would have more information and some have
met earlier this spring to discuss the chart. Sorry to bother you
about it. Just curious really.

Suzanne

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@w...> wrote:
> suzmccarth wrote:
> >
> > --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@w...>
> > wrote:
> > > suzmccarth wrote:
> > >> "Mora" is a technical term in phonological analysis, and it has
> > nothing
> > > to do with writing.
> >
> > What do you think Singler means by 'mora' in his chapter?
>
> I assume he refers to a phonological analysis of the Vai language.
>
> > > Nonsense. "Linguists" did not create 140-160 unneeded symbols.
> >
> > Singler clearly states that at the 1962 conference, said to be
> > dominated by western trained Vai scholars, rather than by script
> > users, participants 'filled in the blanks creating symbols where
> > none had existed before.' 'Most literates find the need for only 40
> > to 60 characters'. 'The seeming systematicity in the shape of the
> > characters is 'artificial, imposed in 1962 and never in fact widely
> > accepted by script users.'
> >
> > One can only assume that script users did not 'need' the extra
> > symbols invented first in 1900 and then in 1962. I think Singler's
> > analysis is quite honest and also typical of what was happening in
> > the 1960's with the 'rationalization' or 'phonemicization' of
> > scripts a la Pike.
>
> I suggest you look at the evidence for what was created in the 1830s, as
> gathered by e.g. Tuchscherer, or before him by Dalby in the early 1960s.
>
> > Singler has further concerns about the relationship of the chart to
> > ordinary use.
> >
> > I am trying to step back and consider fairly the implications of
> > this orthography conference and the many others which took place in
> > other groups. However, it is clear that it happened, for better or
> > worse.
> >
> > > There are no "new" symbols in Vai.
> >
> > 'creating symbols where none had existed before.' What have I
> > missed? Rows were added in 1900 and 1962 according to Singler.
>
> How many?

One source of information is the Vai propsoal for Unicode,
http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2948.pdf , which contains a
fair bit of historical information.  It's the outcome of a conference
on what to do in Unicode for Vai.  Figure 1 in that proposal is a good
reference.

Nasalised vowels are a bit complicated.  If one interprets vowel
initial syllables as beginning with a glottal stop, then one can say that:

1. Nasalisation always occurs after nasal (not pre-nasalised!) consonants.

2. Nasalisation is contrastive after glottal, labiovelar and velar
consonants.  (A form of rhinoglottophilia!)

3. Nasalisation does not occur after other consonants.

4. There are seven oral but only five nasalised vowels in the Vai
language.  (The missing nasalised vowels are (high) /e/ and /o/.)
Most apparently permissible combinations of consonant and nasalised
vowel are not represented in the script.  Full sets of five nasalised
vowel occur in the both language and script only after the glottal
consonants.

On the basis of the above, I would say that vowel nasalisation is a
feature of the preceding consonant (cf. Irish mh).

Vai has 8 rows for nasalised consonants, 34 other rows and a syllabic
nasal.  Of the 34 rows:

3 are for foreign sounds (/T/, /D/ and /Z/).
2 are for recently acquired sounds (/S/ and /r/).
1 is an addition, orginally intended for the foreign /W/, but now used
for /w~/.

These 6 times 7 = 42 symbols are all described as having been added by
Massaquoi.

To that you can add the 6 syllables for syllables containing the
non-Vai vowel sounds /e~/ and /o~/:
/me/, /mo/, /ne/, /no/, /ñe/, /ño/.  There are also the two symbols
for the (randomly?) non-existent /mgbi/ and /mgbu/.

Beyond these 50 inventions, I can only guess at which the rest of the
inventions are.  An obvious *guess* is that the distinguishing
diacritics are new or frequently unused - all the symbols for
nasalised syllables with non-glottal initials are modifications of the
symbols for the corresponding non-nasalised syllable.

Richard.

At 13:16 +0000 2005-08-07, Richard Wordingham wrote:

>Nasalised vowels are a bit complicated.  If one interprets vowel
>initial syllables as beginning with a glottal stop, then one can say that:

The glottal stop is not a part of the phonetic
inventory of Vai. Why do you insert it into your
analysis?

>1. Nasalisation always occurs after nasal (not pre-nasalised!) consonants.
>
>2. Nasalisation is contrastive after glottal, labiovelar and velar
>consonants.  (A form of rhinoglottophilia!)

kp and gb aren't labiovelar; that term is used
for kw and gw, is not not? Kp and gb have double
labial and velar articulation, but I think that
is a different thing.

>4. There are seven oral but only five nasalised vowels in the Vai
>language.  (The missing nasalised vowels are (high) /e/ and /o/.)
>Most apparently permissible combinations of consonant and nasalised
>vowel are not represented in the script.  Full sets of five nasalised
>vowel occur in the both language and script only after the glottal
>consonants.
>
>On the basis of the above, I would say that vowel nasalisation is a
>feature of the preceding consonant (cf. Irish mh).

I thnk it mighty dangerous to derive phonetic
analysis from the orthography. When I say lámh or
creideamh or Samhain in Irish, I do not have a
nasal vowel, and nasalization is not common in
this environment.

I don't really know what the rest of your analysis is meant to do.

--
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com

Hi!

Michael Everson <everson@...> writes:
> At 13:16 +0000 2005-08-07, Richard Wordingham wrote:
>...
> >2. Nasalisation is contrastive after glottal, labiovelar and velar
> >consonants.  (A form of rhinoglottophilia!)
>
> kp and gb aren't labiovelar; that term is used
> for kw and gw, is not not? Kp and gb have double
> labial and velar articulation, but I think that
> is a different thing.

I think kp and gb are labiovelar and kw and gw are labialised.

**Henrik

At 17:30 +0200 2005-08-07, Henrik Theiling wrote:

>I think kp and gb are labiovelar and kw and gw are labialised.

It's ambiguous. When I did Indo-European we used labiovelar for kw/gw.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labiovelar
--
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com

Michael Everson wrote:
>
> At 17:30 +0200 2005-08-07, Henrik Theiling wrote:
>
> >I think kp and gb are labiovelar and kw and gw are labialised.
>
> It's ambiguous. When I did Indo-European we used labiovelar for kw/gw.

But now you're talking about West Africa, which has specialized the
terminology in a direction relevant to its own phenomena.

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labiovelar

Please don't cite Wikipedia as if it were authoritative on any topic.
--
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@...

At 12:34 -0400 2005-08-07, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

>  > It's ambiguous. When I did Indo-European we used labiovelar for kw/gw.
>
>But now you're talking about West Africa, which has specialized the
>terminology in a direction relevant to its own phenomena.

I was only explaining my relation to the term "labiovelar".

>  > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labiovelar
>
>Please don't cite Wikipedia as if it were authoritative on any topic.

I suspect that in saying that the term labiovelar is ambiguous as to
labial-velar on the one hand and labialized velar on the other, the
Wikipedia has supplied accurate and useful information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_T._Daniels may also have some
accurate facts in it. ;-)
--
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, Michael Everson <everson@e...> wrote:
> At 13:16 +0000 2005-08-07, Richard Wordingham wrote:
>
> >Nasalised vowels are a bit complicated.  If one interprets vowel
> >initial syllables as beginning with a glottal stop, then one can
say that:
>
> The glottal stop is not a part of the phonetic
> inventory of Vai. Why do you insert it into your
> analysis?

> >2. Nasalisation is contrastive after glottal, labiovelar and velar
> >consonants.  (A form of rhinoglottophilia!)

> kp and gb aren't labiovelar; that term is used
> for kw and gw, is not not? Kp and gb have double
> labial and velar articulation, but I think that
> is a different thing.

I had assumed the IPA definition would hold sway outside from
Indo-European matters, though I have seen the IE usage used in
comparative linguistics elsewhere.  The difference may not matter much
anyway - I have come across a claim that labialised velars (e.g. k_w)
have become labiovelars (e.g. k_p) under areal influence in at least
one language in the area.

> >On the basis of the above, I would say that vowel nasalisation is a
> >feature of the preceding consonant (cf. Irish mh).
>
> I thnk it mighty dangerous to derive phonetic
> analysis from the orthography. When I say lámh or
> creideamh or Samhain in Irish, I do not have a
> nasal vowel, and nasalization is not common in
> this environment.

But you're not old :)

This illustrates one of the dangers of using information from
libraries!  A little hunting on the web turned up the statment that
the nasalisation for <mh> is on the way out in Irish (
http://www.daltai.com/discus/messages/20/13975.html?1121265883 ) and
restricted to the islands in Scotland (
<http://www.akerbeltz.org/beagangaidhlig/gramar/grammar_nasalisation01.htm>
).
>
> I don't really know what the rest of your analysis is meant to do.

Suzanne claimed that no more than 60 symbols were really used in
normal Vai writing and that the other 140 plus had been added by
linguists.  (Personal context: Non-Cree linguists write Cree a lot
more complicatedly than the Cree of Suzanne's acquaintance.)  Peter
Daniels asked how many rows she claimed they had added.  I supplied an
answer, but first provided the context that many rows were almost empty.

A natural question that may arise is why there are so few rows for
nasal vowels.  The answer seems to be phonetic.  It is simpler to
explain if one assumes glottal stops are present.  A failure to list
is not evidence of absence - of the Proto-Tai glottal stop, Fang Kuei
Li wrote in 1977, 'This is usually kept in most dialects, although it
is not written in the orthography by many authors.'.  By 'orthography'
he means the transcription system of his sources.  Another example is
the glottal stop in German - it is phonemic, but readily omitted from
lists - see the comment at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_phonology .  Perhaps I should rise
to Panini's level and add at the end - 'The glottal stop is always
elided.' (cf. Panini's 'a a') :)

Richard.

Michael Everson wrote:
>
> At 12:34 -0400 2005-08-07, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> >  > It's ambiguous. When I did Indo-European we used labiovelar for kw/gw.
> >
> >But now you're talking about West Africa, which has specialized the
> >terminology in a direction relevant to its own phenomena.
>
> I was only explaining my relation to the term "labiovelar".
>
> >  > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labiovelar
> >
> >Please don't cite Wikipedia as if it were authoritative on any topic.
>
> I suspect that in saying that the term labiovelar is ambiguous as to
> labial-velar on the one hand and labialized velar on the other, the
> Wikipedia has supplied accurate and useful information.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_T._Daniels may also have some
> accurate facts in it. ;-)

It was quoted to me once, and yes, it had _some_ "accurate facts" in it.
--
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@...

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" >

> Suzanne claimed that no more than 60 symbols were really used in
> normal Vai writing and that the other 140 plus had been added by
> linguists.  (Personal context: Non-Cree linguists write Cree a lot
> more complicatedly than the Cree of Suzanne's acquaintance.)  Peter
> Daniels asked how many rows she claimed they had added.  I
>supplied an
> answer, but first provided the context that many rows were almost
>empty.

I didn't respond by metionning the new rows to Peter since they are
all listed in Singler's chapter in WWS. John Nichols chapter on Cree
supplies a text in unpointed syllabics, as the usual one, which is
what I am used to, although I have seen certain elders and priests
use some pointed text as an examnple. Chris Harvey's website
languagegeek.com also supplies unpointed text as the more usual.

In unpointed Cree, the preaspirated consonants are not marked and
long vowels are not marked. Also syllable final consonants can be
unmarked but word final consonants are marked. While a few minimal
pairs exist at the lexical level, this is usually tolerable in any
writing system. Of course, some dialects have more phonemes than
others - that difference exists as well.

It is interesting to me that there is a similarity in the two
situations. I would like to hear Michael comment on what technical
complications are present when the 'chart' is so different from the
inventory which script users typically use. I can appreciate that
there is no easy answer.

Suzanne

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "suzmccarth" <suzmccarth@y...> wrote:
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" >
>
> > Suzanne claimed that no more than 60 symbols were really used in
> > normal Vai writing and that the other 140 plus had been added by
> > linguists.  (Personal context: Non-Cree linguists write Cree a
lot
> > more complicatedly than the Cree of Suzanne's acquaintance.)
Peter
> > Daniels asked how many rows she claimed they had added.  I
> >supplied an
> > answer, but first provided the context that many rows were
almost
> >empty.

Here is the quote from J. Singler. WWS 597

"Most literates find the need for only forty to sixty characters. In
many ways the participants at the 1962 conference 'filled in the
blanks' creating symbols where none had existed before. Thus the
conference largely introduced into the writing system distinctions
between pairs of syllables beginning with s and z, f and v, wV and
V, and the palatal consonants c, j, nj, and y. Very often, a
contrast already existed between pairs of consonants with some
vowels; now it was extended to all seven vowels. Thus most of the
seeming systematicity in the shape of characters is artificial,
imposed in 1962 and never in fact accepted by script users.
(According to Welmers 1976: 11, the system did not oringinally
distinguish between b (implosive) and mb (implosive), d (implosive)
and nd (implosive), or [k] and [ng], these distinctions were only
intoriduced into the writing system around 1900.) A further point
about the relationship of the chart to ordinary use is that the
usual form of some charcters represents an inversion, reversal, or
turning of the version in the chart.

Sorry I lack a the ability to mark implosives properly.

In regards to Cree, John Nichols says,

"writers may use plain syllabics, indicating only the bare outline
of syllable structure, or pointed syllabics, adding diacritics all
the way up to phonmeic transcription, the full realization of which
is rare. Many writers put spaces or dots between words or prefixes,
others write all characters equally far apart with no word
division." WWS p. 602

Diacritics here refer to overdots, preaspiration and all finals.

The difference for Cree is that all the 'diacritics' were supplied
by Evans, in 1841, as optional pointing so the system remains more
or less unchanged. The Cree originally just adopted the basic
syllabic symbols for their own use. Some of those who became
educated in religious texts knew and used *some* pointing. But until
recently no one ever thought of pointing as more than optional and
contextual much like Hebrew.

Suzanne

At 03:20 +0000 2005-08-08, suzmccarth wrote:

>It is interesting to me that there is a similarity in the two
>situations.

I don't see any analogy between Cree and Vai at all.

>I would like to hear Michael comment on what technical complications
>are present

Please be precise in what you are asking for. "Technical
complications being present" doesn't mean anything. What kind of
complications?

>when the 'chart' is so different from the inventory which script
>users typically use.

The inventory is a superset of characters in historical and modern use.
--
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, Michael Everson <everson@e...> wrote:
> At 03:20 +0000 2005-08-08, suzmccarth wrote:
>
> >It is interesting to me that there is a similarity in the two
> >situations.
>
> I don't see any analogy between Cree and Vai at all.

White(-hearted) man's conspiracy to kill the scripts by imposing
perfection?  Mind you, there's still a long way to go with Vai - no
tone marks yet!

> >I would like to hear Michael comment on what technical
complications
> >are present
>
> Please be precise in what you are asking for. "Technical
> complications being present" doesn't mean anything. What kind of
> complications?
>
> >when the 'chart' is so different from the inventory which script
> >users typically use.
>
> The inventory is a superset of characters in historical and modern
use.

You make it sound as though there is quite a lot of annotation to be
drawn up for the Unicode charts.  There are already enough knock-on
effects with the confusables for the Roman/Greek/Cyrillic/Coptic(?)
BEIKT, plus quite a few other cases of lesser scope.  I'm not sure
what is being categorised as 'in historical use'.  I would have
assumed that that referred to the characters provisionally named for
Unicode using the word 'Ndole'; possibly some characters named using
the word 'symbol'; and the syllables impossible in Vai.

There seem to be syllables that failed, i.e. were proposed / promoted
but have not made it into use by the general populace.  Are these
counted as historical?

Technical complications I can think of are:

1) Keyboard design (but I'm not sure that there really are any
special issues here).  Would one need a Vai IME?

2) Transliteration, even between the three scripts used for Vai.  I'm
not sure how possible this is - does the Roman script normally show
tonal information?  Strictly speaking, transliteration into Vai
should probably use the full repertoire even if the general populace
just ignores the 'diacritics'.

3) Folding from 'full' repertoire to 'general use' repertoire.  I
wonder if the Unicode standard should identify the 'general use'
repertoire?  Is this an editorial issue?  It seems like a Unicode
issue rather than an ISO/IEC 10646 issue to me.

I don't think any of this detracts from the merits of the Vai
proposal.

Richard.

{Delayed reply; sorry}

On Wed, 20 Jul 2005 19:01:21 -0400, suzmccarth <suzmccarth@...>
wrote:

> I have seen children put down a letter for a 2 syllable word and I then
> I wait for the next syllable but they continue with the next word - also
> few grammatical endings or function words depending on how significant
> it is.

When my "kid sister" (6 years younger) was learning the language, quite
early she labeled part of a figure sketch "LBO".

I now understand somewhat better why one sees adults omit whole middle
syllables ("nutrious"; "incandent") from words. A current thread on a
Linux list must have 30 or 40 Subject lines, uncorrected, that contain
just the word "installion". A gentle reference to a horse that I made
seems to have been ignored. "Sorry for the inconvience" is epidemic.

I see, as well, a dropping of plurals, as well as dropping of the final
"s" in "...ists" words such as "scientists"; also dropping of endings on
status words -- test results that say "PASS" instead of "PASSED", and
several other similar ones in computer and technical usage. Some, such as
"The install went well" seem essentially unambiguous, and concise, if
non-standard.

The inability of native speakers to get "woman/women" correct seems to
stem from something else.

I'm still utterly baffled why scrambling the sequence of all but the first
and last letters of words (written in context) doesn't seriously affect
some people's ability to read the text.

--
Nicholas Bodley  /*|*\ Waltham, Mass. (Not "MA")
The curious hermit -- autodidact and polymath
Hope for these times: Paul Rogat Loeb's book --
"The Impossible Will Take a Little While:..."

On Sat, 30 Jul 2005 14:20:44 -0400, suzmccarth <suzmccarth@...>
wrote:

> It is indeed difficult to spell in French!

> Have you heard this little poem my mother taught me as a child?

Most Qalamites probably know of "Mots d'Heure: Gousses, Rames". It was a
very clever small book, which, when read aloud according to French rules
of pron'n., sounded much of the time like English, but, amazingly, the
English and the French referred to the same general topic (at least). I
think the book had a successor. Googling was frustrating; two hits, with
quotes, and a non-responsive server.

Robert Ripley, I think, first mentioned "Strk krk krz krk" (ASCII
spelling!). That might be bogus; Czech or Slovak, reputedly.

--
Nicholas Bodley  /*|*\ Waltham, Mass. (Not "MA")
who used to play a zobcová flétna (wrong case, there, likely)
and would love to try playing a fujara.
Latter seems to be a bass tabor pipe.

On Sat, 30 Jul 2005 16:06:22 -0400, Andrew Dunbar <hippietrail@...>
wrote:

> It has been written that Tibetan outdoes English as far as separation
> between spoken and written forms.

I have seen just a few examples, and the difference is remarkable.

--
Nicholas Bodley  /*|*\ Waltham, Mass. (Not "MA")
The curious hermit -- autodidact and polymath
Hope for these times: Paul Rogat Loeb's book --
"The Impossible Will Take a Little While:..."

The discussion recently about French spelling brings to mind what (for my
personal use) I call "respelled" Haitian Creole (probably "kreyol
ayisyin", maybe cap.). Apparently, there has to be some consensus about
the new spelling, because I see Kreyol text around Cambridge and Boston.
Another word that comes to mind is "ranseyman", a poetic-looking spelling
of "renseignement". If one didn't know some French and how it's
pronounced, the text alone probably would be quite baffling.

--
Nicholas Bodley  /*|*\ Waltham, Mass. (Not "MA")
who understands more French than he expects to,
considering the lack of formal classes, or even study

On Sat, 30 Jul 2005 15:37:32 -0400, Andrew Dunbar <hippietrail@...>
wrote:

> For me looking up characters in a Chinese or Japanese dictionary is very
> painstaking
[...]
When I was on "middle-class welfare", the unemployment "high" around 1992,
I spent some time betwenn fruitless job searching trying (asa hobbyist) to
translate Japanese, using the then-current Nelson Dictionary; did that
without any formal training. It was pre-global-warming-glacially slow,
about half an hour, average, maybe, per sentence. I was impressed by the
ambiguities; one needed to deduce context from the rest of the sentence,
it seemed to me.

Made myself a narrow scroll to put Nelson's rules all in one document...

> Or maybe I take stroke order into account when trying to count the
> strokes.

Ouch. Learning exactly what amounts to one stroke is crucial!

Once one has used the correct radical, and counted strokes correctly, what
determines the sequence of hanzi/kanji within the little group?

--
Nicholas Bodley  /*|*\ Waltham, Mass. (Not "MA")
hanja, too (What's VN for them? Han Nom?)

On Sun, 31 Jul 2005 22:45:38 -0400, suzmccarth <suzmccarth@...>
wrote:

> At the rate we are going no system will be a syllabary and it will fall
> into disuse.

Golly. Even the kanas in Japanese? In my dilettante's experience, they are
very illustrative of what a syllabary is like.

--
Nicholas Bodley  /*|*\ Waltham, Mass. (Not "MA")
The curious hermit -- autodidact and polymath
Hope for these times: Paul Rogat Loeb's book --
"The Impossible Will Take a Little While:..."