From: François Yergeau (francois@yergeau.com)
Date: Sat Oct 29 2005 - 14:33:41 CST
suzanne mccarthy a écrit :
> I would assume that the French author who wrote 'syllabaires' didn't
> really understand the English semantics since Syllabics is the original
> *name* for the system. It was not a shortened invention in recent years
> but it is the Cree way of talking about their writing system in English
> and is in sense a proper noun as is.
I fail to see how that makes it a proper noun, any more than "runes" or
"hieroglyphics". It's just an English name.
> The link that I sent shows that the Cree in Quebec do not use the term
> 'syllabaire' but 'caracteres syllabiques'.
One link is not enough to show that something is not in use. In fact,
the slightest amount of googling around will show that "syllabaire" *is*
in use, including this page
http://langcom.nu.ca/languages/fr_writing.html from the Nunavut
government showing concurrent use of "écriture syllabique" and
"syllabaire", as synonyms.
> My only remaining concern is that there must always have been a
> semi-official way to translate the term Syllabics into French and I am
> sure that 'ecriture syllabique', or 'caracteres syllabiques' depending
> on the context, is it, not 'syllabaire'.
I'm curious of what distinction you make between "syllabaire" and
"écriture syllabique".
-- François Yergeau
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