At 10:54 PM 7/6/01, DougEwell2@cs.com wrote:
> > I wonder: why aren't languages with simple syllabic structures written in
> > hiragana? It seems to be built for them.
>
>Hiragana (and katakana) assume certain things about the syllabic structure,
>specifically that syllables are of the form [C] V [C], where the trailing
>consonant (if any) must be "n". Pairs of consonants like "st" and "tr"
>within a single syllable aren't supported in kana. Neither are consonants
>like "th" and vowels like "short a" as in "ash."
>
>The kana are not built for "languages with simple syllabic structures" in
>general, but for a specific language of that type: Japanese. It serves that
>language very well, but would not work so well for, say, Spanish or Italian
>(which could also be said to have relatively simple syllabic structures).
A similar situation exists with a Plane 1 syllabary, Linear B. Unlike the
kana, Linear B doesn't even have the capability of ending a syllable with
"n". It was used to write Greek (the Greeks borrowed it from the Minoan
Linear A script), and was ill-suited to the task. Part of the difficulty in
its original decipherment was the way it mangled Greek words.
It is interesting to speculate on the nature of Minoan from the limitations
of the syllabary. Both the Phoenicians and the Egyptians had similar words
for Minoan Crete (kaftor and keftyw, iirc), neither of which can accurately
be depicted in Linear B, nor can the names of several Minoan gods that
passed into Greek (Potnia being the one that comes to mind). Either the
similar glyphs of Linear A had different meanings (and perhaps Linear B was
a big joke on the Greeks perpetrated by Minoan scribes), or else it was at
least somewhat inadequate for writing Minoan.
Cherokee is another syllabary that is very language-specific. And Etruscan
was pretty much forced into an alphabet--with its long consonant clusters,
a syllabary would have been unwieldy.
-- Curtis Clark http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/ Biological Sciences Department Voice: (909) 869-4062 California State Polytechnic University FAX: (909) 869-4078 Pomona CA 91768-4032 USA jcclark@csupomona.edu
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