Re: Brithenig diphthongs (was: Yiddish influences in Brithenig)

["Raymond A. Brown" <raybrown@macline.co.uk>]

At 7:23 pm +1200 9/5/98, Andrew Smith wrote:
>On Thu, 7 May 1998, Raymond A. Brown wrote:
[.....]
>>
>That explains it.  I resisted introducing high to mid central vowels into
>Brithenig - it played havoc with the orthography, so I resisted using
>centering diphthongs and ae -> {ai}, oe -> {oi}.

Yep - I would not do so, either.  I think Brithenig {u} would probably have
followed the same path as in French, i.e. become high, rounded front vowel
[y]; it is not improbable that rounded mid front vowels would have
developed also (Breton has such a vowel).

>This means a rewrite of
>the orthography: {u} becomes a tense/lax high central vowel OBri {o:} ->
>NBri {w};

I would suggest that {u} developed as above; the lax vowel would be like
'short' German u-umlaut.

>or {ae} and {oe} are redefined, most likely as /a:/ and /o:/.
>Both options are workable and not necessarily exclusive.

Yeah - I think three possibilities for {ae} and {oe}
i. The diphthongs fall together with {ai} and {oi} as /ai/ & /oi/ respectively;
ii. They developed (as in certain South Walian dialects) to /a:/ and /o:/;
iii. Their development was not uniform in Brithenig, some dialects merging
them with /ai/ and /oi/, others developing "long diphthongs" like Dutch
{aai} and {ooi}. i.e. /a:i/ and /o:i/, while others developed simply the
long vowels /a:/ and /o:/.

The third is the one I'd favor, with /a:i/ & /o:i/ perhaps being looked
upon as "official".  Similar long diphthongs also occurred in ancient
Greek.  By the Hellenistic period they'd given way to simple long vowels &
the habit developed of writing the iota beneath the vowel (iota subscript);
the ancient inscriptions  knew no such convention.

"Long diphthongs" of the modern Dutch or ancient Greek sort are likely
either to give way to simple diphthongs or simple long vowels.

>thoughts?
You have them.

Ray.

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