Re: Breathanach

[Geoff Eddy <geoff@morven.compulink.co.uk>]

John,

Thanks for your comments; it's very encouraging to receive comments and
criticisms from (I presume!) interested parties.

You wrote:

> I note that vowels in unstressed (non-initial) syllables are no
> longer limited to orthographic A and E, both pronounced [@].

To be a bit more specific, orthographic A EA AI I, depending on the
qualities of the adjacent consonants... but please excuse my pedantry!

> This contradicted the existing paradigms anyhow.

I have to admit not knowing what you mean by this - could you clarify? I
should point out that Breathanach is in a state of some flux at the
moment, since I now have access to more detailed descriptions of the
sound-changes in the Q-Celtic languages.

> But I continue to think that reducing *all* unstressed vowels to
> [@] is overkill.  Have a three-vowel system [@ I U] if you want,
> but I can think of no Romance language that *totally* disposes of
> a front-back distinction even outside stress.

The problem, of course, is that of reconciling the sound-systems of
Q-Celtic with Romance; I imagine that it was a lot easier with
Brithenig. As I understand it, information which in Romance is carried
by vowel quality is more likely to be carried by consonant quality in
Breathanach - although, as you point out, my solution is probably too
far towards Q-Celtic. I've had similar problems with long vowels, and
have yet to come across a satisfactory solution.
Another awkward question concerns the diphthongs /ia ua/: should these
evolve from original long /e o/, as in Q-Celtic, or from short /e o/, as
in Romance?

In the meantime, I've just moved house (well, flat actually), so it'll
be a few days before I'm able to update the Breathanach pages. Keep
checking, though, just in case...

Regards, and thanks again,

Geoff
-- 
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