Michael, > At 15:40 -0700 2001-10-11, Kenneth Whistler wrote: > > >The Canadian aboriginal syllabics, derived from a shorthand > >system, > > Which one? What are the common elements? (I have never checked this myself.)
I may have overstated the case. It was probably a Zeitgeist thing, rather than a direct derivation. James Evans invented the orginal set of aboriginal syllabics in the 1830's. Isaac Pitman developed his system in 1837 in England, and it spread to the U.S. through his brother Benn, who moved to Cincinnati. There are some similarities, in the use of straight lines or semicircular arcs (rather than the cursive elliptic arcs later introduced by Gregg in this system), and in the use of dots (or dashes) to indicate vowelling. Whether there was any more direct commonality, I don't know. --Ken
