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On 17/05/2006 22:40, italocarune wrote:
In romconlang@yahoogroups.com, "Peter Collier" <petecollier@...> wrote:Thing is, I can't imagine how best to transcribe a word-initial velar fricative (other than the Swiss <kch_>, which just looks too non-roman) - and I have plenty of them. In other positions I used <ch>, which seems fine to me (not too far away for example fom the French <ch> for /S/). I've thought of maybe <c>, or <c-cedilla>, or even <hch> (c.f. German <sch> and <tsch>), but they don't quite seem to fit. Maybe just use <ch> in initial position too, althouh that looks 'wrong' to me. Does anyone have any idea how those poor mediaeval monks, schooled in classical latin, might have tried to write an initial /x/ ?
>
Why not <ch> like German?
My spoken German has about 15 years of rust on it, and I'm having trouble thinking of a German word with initial /x/ or /C/ ... But, yes, if the sound can be represented <ch> in other positions, why not initially? Classical authors seemed to have struggled with early Germanic /x/ in names and such as well, but it quite commonly seems to have come out as <ch> initially.
The other option would be to use a modified rune (like the Old English "thorn" for /T/ or /D/) or modified Latin letter (like the Old English "edh" for, um, also /T/ or /D/! :) What about a barred <h> (if Unicode is workingL: ħ), like what Maltese uses for a voiceless pharyngeal fricative /X\/.
Cheers, Carl -- Carl Edlund Anderson mailto:cea@hidden.email http://www.carlaz.com/