RE: Tamil Sri / Shri

From: Michael Maxwell (mmaxwell@casl.umd.edu)
Date: Sat Nov 03 2007 - 10:56:02 CST

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    > Also Tamil does not have glyph/character for every phonetic sound. For
    > an example ka, kha, ga, and gha sounds written using only by ka-?.
     
    That's because these are allophones in Tamil, and the Tamil writing system is (or at least was, historically) substantially a phonemic system, as most newly developed writing systems are. (Writing systems tend not to change as fast as the language does, hence the diglossia noticed by "Mahesh Pai".)
     
    Tamil phonology, orthography, and diglossia are described at Wikipedia, and of course in lots of books.
     
       Mike Maxwell
       CASL/ U MD

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