From: Brian M. Scott
Message: 50739
Date: 2007-12-07
> ok
> Let's admit you are right
> and there is nothing to look for.
> Arnaud
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: P&G
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Friday, December 07, 2007 10:32 AM
> Subject: Re: [SPAM]Re: [SPAM]Re: [SPAM][tied] comohota
> >Modern languages like English or French
> >have traditions ....
> >I suppose Umbrian had nothing like that,
> >2 000 years ago.
> >they started from nil and from a white page.
> Have you forgotten the Greeks? And the Etruscans?
> Have you also forgotten that standardised spelling is an 18th century
> European idea?
> >2. why is it they chose -h- to display morphemic (?) cut ?
> >Neither Greek nor Latin can be a "model" to create such a -h-.
> Actually, both can be. Don't forget words such as ahena in Latin, or
> prehendo, or mihi..
> And don't confuse "Greek" with our way of spellling the Attic dialect.
> There were other Greek alphabets, and other dialects, and other ways of
> spelling.
> >1. why is it they wrote mota as mo-h-o-ta ?
> >You are selling the "just-forget-it" explanation.
> Actually, I'm selling the "we don't know" explanation. Or better, "we don't
> know, but we do know it may be nothing but a meaningless aberration of
> spelling."
> >I cannot buy this "explanation" :
> Good. Keep explporing.
> >it just does not sound as a possible explanation at all.
> Unfortunately, it is. We can't say it is the answer, but we can say it is
> possible.
> >What is a "spelling marker" ?
> It's a device for indicating what a single letter cannot indicate. For
> example, Latin had no way of marking long vowels, so one "spelling marker"
> they tried was writing the vowel twice, or writing it bigger. (It didn't
> catch on). Another that was tried in Latin was a sign to indicate word
> accent. That also didn't catch on.
> German uses <h> as a spelling marker. It indicates a long vowel - as in
> gehen - but elsewhere it is a phoneme, as in Gehirn.
> We know Umbrian spelling was inconsistent and chaotic. We know <h> was
> used as a sign of hiatus in both Umbrian and Oscan. So I think you are
> trying too hard.
> Peter
>