Re: Irish spelling

etaonsh <rcom@...> scripsit:

> 'Tho' is accepted in US spelling; 'Ugh' if you insist.

Not in the U.S. spelling that either Michael (born in the U.S.) or I (ditto)
ever learned, thank you very much.

> No it isn't. This whole topic started because an outsider saw the
> spelling/pronunciation discrepancy in Irish straight away, and was
> kind enough to be politely concerned about it, like a worried bedside
> relative.

It's trivial compared to the spelling/pronunciation discrepancy in English,
which affects many hundreds of millions of people, causing them to waste
perhaps 1-2 extra years of schooling.

> What's unusual is people concerning themselves with matters
> like 'preserving the basic spelling of the root,' and 'showing the
> mutation,' as tho these things somehow mattered to users of the
> language, and the complete lack of concern for ergonomics/other
> people's time & patience.

English is very concerned with maintaining the similarity between "nation"
and "national", though a more phonemic-based spelling would give us "neixn"
and "naxnl", or something of the sort.

> What about the non-conformist abandonment of 'v' in favour of more
> time-consuming 'f,' & 'ff' for f? Another little worry for the polite
> stranger.

What about the abandonment in English of a = [a], e = [e], i = [i] common
to almost every other language that uses the Latin script?

> > >thus, for example, making Manx the most phonetic of the three
> Gaelic scripts,
> >
> > It isn't at all phonetic; indeed it is rather difficult to relate
> > Manx orthography to Manx phonology. It appears that you don't know
> > what you are talking about.
>
> Enough to know that 'v' vrooms better than 'bh.'

Are you distressed by the use of "ph" in English? Do you want to change
to "fotografy"?

> Irish & Scots contributors to Manx forums who uphold a Nazi-like
> conservatism in spelling and lecture Gaels who are fewer, more
> vulnerable, but more modern.

Ooops. Godwin's Law now applies:

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/Godwin's-Law.html

# As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison
# involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in
# many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever
# mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in
# progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an
# upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there is also a
# widely- recognized codicil that any intentional triggering of Godwin's
# Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful.

> It is probably a veiled attempt to integrate Manx, a national
> language, as a 'dialect' of their own, declining tongues.

You can't have it both ways. Either the distinct orthographies are
"unscientific" or they aren't. The Gaeilge and Gaidhlig orthographies
just plain work better than the Manx one, despite their defects.

> Even the
> terminology ('Gaelic and Irish') is
> muddled/misleading/divisive/imperialistic.

True, but it's the least problematic naming convention for use in English.

> Don't tell me the traditionalists allowed them anything as modern as
> a vote on the matter - I'd find that as hard to believe as the idea
> that Guinness won the stout battle democratically, much as
> the 'flavour of the month' monetarists would have us believe such
> things.

Voting is altogether irrelevant to orthography. Only usage counts.
What do people actually *do* when writing their language?

*plonk*


--
John Cowan jcowan@... www.reutershealth.com ccil.org/~cowan
Dievas dave dantis; Dievas duos duonos --Lithuanian proverb
Deus dedit dentes; deus dabit panem --Latin version thereof
Deity donated dentition;
deity'll donate doughnuts --English version by Muke Tever
God gave gums; God'll give granary --Version by Mat McVeagh