LINGUIST List 7.1013

Thu Jul 11 1996

Disc: Indic scripts

Editor for this issue: Ann Dizdar <dizdartam2000.tamu.edu>

Directory

1. Lars Martin Fosse, Re: 7.971, Disc: Indic scripts, standard Lao

Message 1: Re: 7.971, Disc: Indic scripts, standard Lao

>Date: Mon, 01 Jul 1996 21:28:29 CDT
>From: pdanielspress-gopher.uchicago.edu (Peter Daniels)
>Subject: Re: 7.959, Qs: Scripts
>
>Regarding David Solnit's query about Southeast Asian scripts, I would
>immodestly state that the basic reference work is now *The World's Writing
>Systems*, edited by me and William Bright (Oxford UP, 1996), wherein you
>will find some rather nice charts and quite full bibliography on the ancestry
>of South and Southeast Asian scripts. I believe that none of our authors use
>so vague a term as "Pali scripts"; "Pali" is sort of a catch-all term for
>"everything post-
>Sanskrit and pre-modern, particularly if it relates to Buddhism," as far as
>I can tell as a non-Indicist.

Re the term Pali: Pali is not a "catch-all term for everything
post-Sanskrit and pre-modern". Ancient Indic languages after Vedic Sanskrit
- the oldest stage - are divided into Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit (which is
really a group of languages younger than Pali), Apabhramsha (the last stage
of Ancient Indic before the modern Neo-Aryan Languages emerge). Pali,
Prakrit and Apabhramsha are also referred to as MIA or Middle Indo-Aryan
languages. Please not that Dravidian languages are not included here!

Best regards,

Lars Martin Fosse



Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
Haugerudveien 76, Leil. 114,
N-0674 OSLO Norway

Tel: +47 22 32 12 19
Fax: +47 22 32 12 19

E-mail: L.M.Fosseinternet.no