Re: Breathanach orthography: a minor suggestion

[John Cowan <cowan@locke.ccil.org>]

Padraic Brown wrote:

> Since Kernu uses accented vowels at times, I may make use of this
> convention as well.  I'll just have to replace the right acutes with
> graves.  Do you have any idea why there was a differentiation based on
> vowel type in the first place?

Well, the basic point is that é is [e] and è is [E],
and ditto for o.  All Western Romance languages have to have that
much, unless (like Spanish and Brithenig) they've abandoned the phonemic
distinctions between open and close e/o.  That being so, it makes
sense for a to get the grave as an open vowel, and i and u to get
acutes as closed ones.

My earlier remarks on what (standardized) languages do turn out
to be a bit off.  Here's the information from the Alvestrand report
at http://www.alvestrand.no/domen/ietf/lang-chars.txt :

Catalan: à, è, é, í, ò, ó, ú: the old rules
French: à, è, é, ú (I don't understand the ù)
Spanish: á, é, í, ó, ú (all acute, no grave).
Italian: à, è, é, ì, ò, ó, ù (standardized on grave)
Portuguese: à, á, é, í, ó, ú (looks like acute only, with à as variant?)
Romanian: doesn't use acute or grave at all
Occitan: no info
Sardinian: no info, orthography is not standardized
Rhaeto-Romance: no info, orthography is not standardized

I don't particularly understand why acute and grave (historically
derived from Greek tonal marks) were chosen for the roles they
have, though.

-- 
John Cowan	http://www.ccil.org/~cowan		cowan@ccil.org
	You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
	You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
		Clear all so!  'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)