Re: Mixed up priorities

From: John Cowan (cowan@locke.ccil.org)
Date: Mon Oct 25 1999 - 12:57:05 EDT


Michael Everson scripsit:

> No, Ethiopic, the kanas, and Cherokee are abugidas. What's meant about
> alphabets is that some of the elements are consonants and some are vowels.
> What's meant about abjads is that all are consonants.

I understand the point, I'm questioning the adequacy of the definition.
In Ethiopic (unlike the unquestioned abugidas), the vowels have unique
representations that are ligatured to the consonants. For what are
probably sufficient reasons, Unicode didn't adopt that representational
strategy, but it could have.

-- 
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
       I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin



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