Aksharas, alphasyllabaries, abugidas, alphabets and orthographic depth: Reflections on Rimzhim, Katz and Fowler (2014)

We contend that, contrary to Rimzhim, Katz and Fowler (2014), consonants and vowels in the Brahmi-derived scripts are not “on a par”, and, therefore, that it is inaccurate to depict these scripts as alphabetic. Furthermore, we consider the popular terminology “alphasyllabic” to be misleading because these scripts are neither alphabetic nor syllabic. We argue on historical grounds that Brahmi-derived scripts (the script family known as Indic) are...