Re: Orthography

[Padraic Brown <pbrown@polaris.umuc.edu>]

On Wed, 21 Apr 1999, Andrew Smith wrote:

> On Wed, 14 Apr 1999, Raymond A. Brown wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> >
> So it's about time Andrew got around to replying.... 

Indeed! ;)

> > -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > [FINAL SOFT G & C]
> >
> Favour appears to go to marking final soft affricates with an accent.  I
> will go and look at the character lists for html and report back. 

So!  The orthography of *there* is affected by the diacritical
possibilities of *here*!?  Well ... it's certainly a problem for
displaying the affected letters on screen.  If it's not in the character
list, you'd end up having to use very small .gif or .jpg files for each
instance of the required letter.  Generally a _very_ unattractive
solution.

> Naturally there would be differences.  Compare Brithenig and Kernu.  Same
> ideas, different results.  No slight was intended or reciprocated.  There
> is still dialect variations to play with if anyone wishes to try.

I figure there may be as many as seven dialect areas (not taking into
account minor variations).  From the south to north: Little British
(spoken in Brittany, west of France); Kernu (taken); the Central Dialects
(Western Brithenig, which I believe Andrew has mentioned, roughly west of
Swansea; Castreleonese (taken); Paysan (spoken in Ill Paes, and known to
be very similar to Castreleonese)); Powys Dialect (in the mountainous
central regions); Anglesevian (in the Northwest); Devanish (centered
around Dui); Mannish (in the Isle of Man). 

Any or all of these may have local dialects (for ex., Duneint has at least
eight regional dialects).  And they don't necessarily have to be look
alikes.

And who knows what New Zealandish or Australian Brithenig are like!

Padraic.

> 
> - andrew.
>