--- Andreas Johansson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Roger Mills wrote:
> >Reading the archive for the period 11-10 to 11-14.

Thanks for this sort of reply and the subject line!
I've got a group of friends meeting in an hour - no
time even today, unlike my normal routine, to sort
thru my conlang emails... already at 530  :-(
Sorry to anyone who is expecting a reply from me, I'll
have to try to find more time tomorrow, though Sundays
are my laundry day  :-8  :-(  /big sigh/

> >You pointed out the similarity of Kash script to
> Thai.  The answer is yes,
> >more or less, very impressionistically-- as I don't
> actually know the Thai
> >alphabet, but have always thought it very
> beautiful.  Also Old Javanese
> >script, but that's real eye-strain.

Aha, bingo!  The curviness of Thai may look pleasant,
but the system to use it is not in my opinion.  Not
very "user-friendly" if you follow my drift, way too
many exceptions based on the various accent marks.
Personally, a similar but more-appealing system is
Khmer.
If you want, I could contact a Khmer friend in Phnom
Penh to ask him to send you a Khmer reader (you'd need
to email me personally).  He's quite down-and-out
(nice taxi-driver I meant in PP last summer), so he'd
probably ask you to transfer cash to him for the
reader/S&H to a bank acct, but I think you could trust
him.  Well, it's just a suggestion, as I know it may
be useful to you and certainly help him (and his
wife/3 kids) out.
Old Javanese?  No clue, never saw it - even in the
writing scripts reader by Akira Nishimura (I think
that was his name?) I have.
What mystifies you so much about Thai/Javanese?  I
love Hangul characters for their simplicity,
appearance, and orderliness; whereas, I love Japanese
characters (inclusive of kanji) for the "freeness"in
their appearance (tho' dislike that they look
unbalanced put together).

> >Re origin of Cipango:  True, the Portugee got there
> first; but there were
> >Italian Jesuits in China who could have relayed the
> Chinese name back to
> >Italian cartographers.  Maybe?  Perhaps even Marco
> Polo heard refs. to what
> >he heard as Cipango.??
>
> He did. (IIRC, he however spelt it "Zipango".)

Hmm, would that then explanation why Malay or
Indonesia (forgot which) calls Japan "Japang" with
that final G... I wonder.

Matt33

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