From: Michael Everson (everson@evertype.com)
Date: Sun Nov 30 2003 - 15:31:33 EST
At 12:09 -0800 2003-11-30, Peter Constable wrote:
> >>But there's some confusion thrown into the mix, though, by the fact
> >>that they list the shape twice in their "alphabet" (their ordered
> >>list of consonants), one being where you'd expect to find a wa;
> >
> >Who lists, where?
>
>Lists in the two sources I had just mentioned: "Oriya Self-Taught"
>and "Caattassaalli Paattha"
I have not seen those.
> >Compare these to the chart in N2525
>
>>ya ra lla la VA WA
>
>Which tells us what? That both the dotted-ba (VA) and the WA are
>attested as early as 1931, and considered by one source to be
>ordered after la.\
That VA and WA are two different characters (and they have been
encoded so). That they both follow LA (VA follows LA anyway and the
evidence in N2525 shows WA also following LA).
>What I haven't seen is clear evidence that the wa-phallaa is
>considered to be related to nominal BA and not a distinct character
>falling after LA.
WA has been added as a new independent letter, without a
decomposition to O+BA, although its graphic appearance and simple
phonetics shows us that it is an innovation based on that
combination. If DBA = [dwa] surely OBA = [owa] > [wa]
My contention is that it IS an innovation; that syllables in -[wa]
were normally written with -BA and that WA was invented to cater for
the need for initial [wa] in Urdu and English words.
-- Michael Everson * * Everson Typography * * http://www.evertype.com
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