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----- Original Message -----
From: Benct Philip Jonsson
To: romconlang@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 1:01 PM
Subject: [romconlang] Re: On orthgraphies
Yes it *is* fun. I've just been thinking about what Greek
from about the beginning of the CE -- more or less the stage
of Greek phonology reflected in the standard Latin
transcription of Greek -- would look like if subjected to
the sound changes of Old English (and then Middle and New
English...)
I thought I was mad...
Obviously as _ch-_. That's what they used in Old and Middle
High German when writing in those dialects that had initial
/x/, so they would write _chuo_ for 'cow' -- the modern
final _-h_ in _Kuh_ being merely an orthographic device
introduced by analogy. Why wouldn't that fit? Do you use
initial _ch-_ for soemthing else? Do you perhaps mean an
initial velar *affricate*, i.e. /kx/ as opposed to,and
distinct from, the fricative /x/, which is what _kch_
denotes in Swiss German? I agree that _kch-_ seems
suboptimal! However you are not the only one to think so:
IIRC some Swiss use _kh_ for /kx/ against _ch_ for /x/
(which would seem to be more economical as well).
I had a velar afficate /kx/ ( < /k/) to begin with, but I softened it to /x/, mainly - with apologies to any Eidgenossen on group - because I find it ugly and hard (for me) to pronounce, but also because that is (i believe) a common sound change. But I was thinking if it began as /kx/ a <kch> spelling might have been retained. <ch> or <h> is better though, I think.
I've had similar problems when trying to imagine how Old English
orthography might have evolved if it had *not* been influenced
by Norman French spelling. In Old English _c, g_ were used for
both for 'soft' /tS/, /j/ and for 'hard' /k/, /g/. Sometimes
an _e_ or _i_ was inserted to show that the consonant was 'soft'
before a hard vowel, but there was no way to indicate a 'hard'
consonant before a 'soft' vowel. My favorite assumption is that
_ch, gh_ came into use for this, like in Italian, but this left
me without a good graphy for /x/. Mostly I've assumed that they
went on using _h_ for /x/, but sometimes I've used _k_ for /x/!
i'd like, to see your results!
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