From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Sat Oct 29 2005 - 16:53:17 CST
From: "François Yergeau" <francois@yergeau.com>
> I'm curious of what distinction you make between "syllabaire" and
> "écriture syllabique".
I see one difference (sorry I must include French here):
* Une écriture syllabique est un système d'écriture, qui peut comprendre
plusieurs syllabaires.
* De même une écriture alphabétique (comme l'écriture latine) peut
comprendre plusieurs alphabets.
In other words, the code block represents several distinct syllabaries, but
they are unified in the same sylllabic system (like the Latin script unified
many distinct alphabets).
As Unicode does not encode distinctly the various Latin-based alphabets, it
also does not encode distinctly the various syllabaries based on the same
unified canadian aboriginal syllabic system. So the code block represents
the syllabic system (should be singular), but several syllabaries (should be
plural). Using "syllabics" (with the name of the script system) with the
plural form, seems in fact less accurate in English than using
"syllabaries".
It looks as strange as if this block was named after "syllabary" with the
singular form, but this is tolerated in English due to usage of "syllabic"
also as a name to designate each character used in the unique syllabic
system, and in several distinct syllabaries. In French the use of
"syllabique" as a name is not known to designate each character, and so it
is inappropriate in the plural form.
So we must use either "syllabique" (with the singular) as an adjective to
designate the single system (like for "latin"), or we must use the common
name "syllabaires" (with the plural) to designate the various ordered sets
of characters that build up this system. None of these two are proper names.
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