Re: Orthography

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

At 5:29 pm +1200 11/4/99, Andrew Smith wrote:
>On Sat, 10 Apr 1999, Raymond A. Brown wrote:
>
>I think I am going to up the ante, and for that reason I'll add Martin to
>the discussion since he is learning the language and any decision we make
>affects his studies.

Welcome aboard :)

>(Incidently, for everyone else, he has been asking
>some questions on the use of the infinitive with prepositions which I'm
>going to have to revise on the Brithenig homepage.)

Excellent - prepositions with the verbnoun are an essential feature of the
modern Celticlangs, of course, and the use of preposition + infinitive is
also a mark of the western Romancelangs.  So, yes, IMO it'll a good thing
if Martin concentrates the minds of us anglophones on this :)

Ok - I note Andrew will be away till the weekend, so I haven't rushed on
this one.  But I have an unexpected bit of free time now so I'll just state
my position for what it's worth.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[FINAL SOFT G & C]
>To recap:
>
>For historical reasons the soft g and the soft c can occur as a final
>sound following the loss of a final front vowel. While several Celtic
>languages languages *here* uses the letter j for words borrowed from
>English, or from French in the case of Breton, for this sound, it's not a
>necessarily seen as a naturalised letter to the languages in question.

It's got rather more naturalized in Cornish & Manx, however.  But what I
find awkward with the proposed {j} in Brithenig is:
(a) it will be used _only_ for final /dZ/, which will spelt as soft {g}
elsewhere.
(b) it still (like my earlier suggestion of {cg}) leaves the final soft {c}
unsolved.

>The preferred choice, for some people, is to mark the final soft sound
>with a dot or an accent above it, using the apostrophe in email.

The dot, which is used in Maltese spelling (derived from Italian models)
[and also, Celtophiles might note, is used in the Irish script, tho for
lenition rather than Romance "softening"], could be regarded as the dot on
an earlier written, but unpronounced, {i}.

The use of a diacritic, however it's written (tho I think the haczek is not
appropriate in a Romance language :)  is my preferred choice.

As I said, Romanian which pronounces {c} and {g} like Brithenig & Italian,
uses a final unpronounced {i} to show a final soft {c} or {g}.  To show
that /i/ is actually pronounced, the Romanians write {ii} in this position.
This seems to me also a reasonable solution; and almost ranks at the same
level of preference as the above.

>The
>cluster cg from Old English is an alternative that I have previously
>dismissed but I should include as an option, although it does not cover
>final soft c.

Indeed, it does not and I do not support this solution now either.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[V & F / F & FF]
>
>Now I want to quote Ray:
>
>> But, as Andrew probably recalls (maybe in emails we exchanged before the
>> list got extended :) , I've never been keen on the use of {f} = /v/ and
>> {ff} = /f/ in Brithening.  Both Breton & Cornish use {v} and {f}
>> respectively for the two sounds and, indeed, in medieval Welsh some scribes
>> followed the post-Norman practice and used {v} = /v/ and {f} = /f/ also.
>> Personally, had I "done a Brithenig" before Andrew I'd have used an
>> orthography more like Breton than Welsh.

But if I'd "done a Brithenig" I suspect there'd be other differences.  But
_please_ don't misunderstand me.  I am *NOT* criticizing Andrew in any way.
I'm darn sure that if any single one of us had done this first, there'd
been some differences; of course there would.

I have said more than once before that what first attracted (and still does
attract) me to Brithening is the skilfull & scholarly way Andrew has
achieved a blend of Celticism & Romance to produce a thoroughly plausible
altlang.  I admire skill & and I have the highest respect for scholarly
research.

>>But I think it's too late now to
>> change this in Brithenig & most people seem happy enough with it.
>>
>I want to review my position on this part of the orthography.  When I
>began work on Brithenig I adapted the orthography that evolved here where
>in native Welsh writing {v} was written as a circle and became obscure and
>was replaced by {ff}.  Despite this I still find I prefer {v} and {f} for
>these sounds but decided they had become 'established' features of the
>language which made it different, and it was too late to change this
>feature of the language as other people became interested in it.

I think Andrew & I seem to be at one on this.  Our own _personal_ choices
seem to be {v} and {f}.  However, Andrew adopted the modern Welsh
convention since (a) the same handwriting habits that evolved *here* have
been assumed to have evolved *there* and in both cases remained as it
became regarded as an 'established feature' of the language and
distinguished it from their Saxon neighbours.

>So I'm going to take this opportunity to ask the punters: "Should
>Brithenig remain different and keep its 'Welsh' orthography, or should we
>say the change in spelling never occured *there* as it did *here* for
>various reasons and convert this feature of the spelling so it is more
>like other Romance languages?"

Yep - but: the Welsh {f} & {ff} is not found in the other Celticlangs
either!  The other Brittonic langs uniformally use {v} and {f} as does the
anglicing spelling of Manx Gaelic; the Irish & Scots Gaelics us both {bh}
and {mh} for /v/ or /w/ and either {ph} or single {f} for /f/.   Thus,
apart from Welsh, /f/ is spelt {f} in the Celtic langs and /v/ is spelt
either {v} or as {mh}/ {bh}.  That is, Welsh is different from are its
sister & "cousin" langs in this respect.

Now Andrew says that he personally prefers {v} and {f} but infact adopted
{f} and {ff} in Brithening.  Now this seems odd, unless this is yet another
example of the author of a conlang actually _discovering_ a feature of the
language which they were not aware of before.  Andrew (maybe inspite of
himself :)  has discovered that just *here* Welsh has adopted an
orthographic convention that is not found in any of the other Celticlangs
just as *there*, for similar reasons, Brithenig has adopted the same
convention which is similarly not found in the other Romancelangs.

In short, I feel that, although personally I do not favor the spelling
convention, it IS part of Brithenig.  Therefore, my preference is to
maintain the status quo on this.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Take your time thinking this over as I'm going to wander down south and
>visit family again from Monday until Friday.  Tell me what you think then.

Well, I've got in a bit early, maybe, but I suspect I'll be quite busy this
weekend.

Ray.