There are 20 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. YAEPT Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel correspond
From: And Rosta
1b. Re: YAEPT Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel corres
From: Mark J. Reed
1c. Re: YAEPT Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel corres
From: Tristan McLeay
1d. Re: YAEPT Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel corres
From: Mark J. Reed
1e. Re: YAEPT Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel corres
From: ROGER MILLS
2a. Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel correspondences
From: ROGER MILLS
2b. Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel correspondences
From: Tristan McLeay
2c. Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel correspondences
From: Mark J. Reed
2d. Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel correspondences
From: Tristan McLeay
2e. Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel correspondences
From: John Vertical
2f. Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel correspondences
From: Mark J. Reed
3.1. Re: Scots.
From: Daniel Prohaska
3.2. Re: Scots.
From: Lars Finsen
3.3. Re: Scots.
From: Lars Finsen
3.4. Re: Scots.
From: Henrik Theiling
4a. Re: OE diphthongs/breaking
From: Daniel Prohaska
5a. OT: Dvorak (Was: Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel
From: René Uittenbogaard
5b. Re: OT: Dvorak
From: Henrik Theiling
6. Re: Keyboards (was OE diphthongs/breaking)
From: David McCann
7. Is this already a conlang?
From: Holger Ebermann
Messages
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1a. YAEPT Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel correspond
Posted by: "And Rosta" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 22, 2008 12:54 pm ((PDT))
Tristan McLeay, On 22/07/2008 03:38:
> Mark J. Reed wrote:
>> We have -al/-owl near-homophony in these parts, too. Which leads to
>> eggcornish apocrypha like stories about Winnie the Pooh's wise friend
>> Al.
>
> Now here was me thinking that Winnie the Pooh was meant to be read...
> (In any case, "Al" is often pronounced /&l/ rather than /&:l/, making it
> a homophone of L and not "owl".)
Round our way _Powell_ and _pal_ wd be homophonous not only with each other but
also with _pale_ and _pow_. I'm not sure if they also rhyme with _bell_, _dull_
and _curl_ too; I currently lack access to informants from the relevant places,
age-groups and class.
--And.
Messages in this topic (26)
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1b. Re: YAEPT Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel corres
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 22, 2008 1:14 pm ((PDT))
Tristan McLeay, On 22/07/2008 03:38:
> Now here was me thinking that Winnie the Pooh was meant to be read...
Har. It is of course meant to be read . . . preferably aloud, to
one's small children, who might come to believe that Pooh's wise
friend is named Al.
Of course, any such misapprehension will be dispelled once they see
any pictures of the character in question, perhaps the Disney version
on either the TV show "My Friends Tigger and Pooh" or a DVD of one of
the movies.
Also, of course, his name is more properly spelled "Wol".
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (26)
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1c. Re: YAEPT Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel corres
Posted by: "Tristan McLeay" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 22, 2008 6:25 pm ((PDT))
Mark J. Reed wrote:
> Tristan McLeay, On 22/07/2008 03:38:
>> Now here was me thinking that Winnie the Pooh was meant to be read...
>
> Har. It is of course meant to be read . . . preferably aloud, to
> one's small children, who might come to believe that Pooh's wise
> friend is named Al.
Heh, no. I meant the child's meant to be reading it, either alone or
with their parents, so they can see it's "Owl". And probably the birds
are rare enough that they get discussed too ;) Also most Winnie the Pooh
I read was in the form of picture books.
(On the other hand I seem to recall some surprise when I realised
Eeyore's had a y in it. Real donkeys have a glottal stop in the middle
of their sound. I gather that the r at the end is what confuses/makes it
less transparent to rhotic Americans, though. Are donkeys rhotic or
non-rhotic? I wouldn't know.)
> Also, of course, his name is more properly spelled "Wol".
This one I completely don't get.
--
Tristan.
Messages in this topic (26)
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1d. Re: YAEPT Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel corres
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 22, 2008 6:38 pm ((PDT))
On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 9:25 PM, Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> (On the other hand I seem to recall some surprise when I realised
> Eeyore's had a y in it. Real donkeys have a glottal stop in the middle
> of their sound.
Real donkeys may invariably have the glottal stop, but I've heard the
"animal sound" both ways.
> I gather that the r at the end is what confuses/makes it
> less transparent to rhotic Americans, though.
Completely opaque to rhotic Americans, in my experience, until either
it's pointed out to us or we get enough experience with non-rhotic
dialects that it just clicks. The latter happened with me; it was
quite an epiphany. "Hey! Eeyore's name is THE SOUND A DONKEY
MAKES!!!"
>> Also, of course, his name is more properly spelled "Wol".
> This one I completely don't get.
Among the evidence of Owl's "wisdom" is his ability to write his name,
which he demonstrates for Pooh: W-O-L. Besides poking fun at Owl's
intellectual self-assessment, I gather this is a dialectical
pronunciation of "owl" - Wikipedia says it's Kentish/Sussex thing.
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (26)
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1e. Re: YAEPT Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel corres
Posted by: "ROGER MILLS" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 22, 2008 7:00 pm ((PDT))
Mark Reed wrote:
>On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 9:25 PM, Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>wrote:
> > (On the other hand I seem to recall some surprise when I realised
> > Eeyore's had a y in it. Real donkeys have a glottal stop in the middle
> > of their sound.
>
>Real donkeys may invariably have the glottal stop, but I've heard the
>"animal sound" both ways.
>
> > I gather that the r at the end is what confuses/makes it
> > less transparent to rhotic Americans, though.
>
>Completely opaque to rhotic Americans, in my experience, until either
>it's pointed out to us or we get enough experience with non-rhotic
>dialects that it just clicks. The latter happened with me; it was
>quite an epiphany. "Hey! Eeyore's name is THE SOUND A DONKEY
>MAKES!!!"
>
Until this thread, it had never occurred to me that Eeyore was Brit for
Hee-Haw. Something new every day !!!!
Messages in this topic (26)
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2a. Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel correspondences
Posted by: "ROGER MILLS" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 22, 2008 6:58 pm ((PDT))
Mark J. Reed wrote:
>
>Right-alt (a.k.a. Alt Gr) only works with the keyboard set to US Intl,
>which might have other undesired effects (like turning some
>punctuation marks into dead keys).
True, but it saves a lot of effort if you do much with Spanish/French, even
German...not to mention conlangy stuff............You just have to get used
to hitting the space bar when necessary :-)))
Messages in this topic (26)
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2b. Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel correspondences
Posted by: "Tristan McLeay" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 22, 2008 7:05 pm ((PDT))
ROGER MILLS wrote:
> Mark J. Reed wrote:
>> Right-alt (a.k.a. Alt Gr) only works with the keyboard set to US Intl,
>> which might have other undesired effects (like turning some
>> punctuation marks into dead keys).
>
> True, but it saves a lot of effort if you do much with Spanish/French, even
> German...not to mention conlangy stuff............You just have to get used
> to hitting the space bar when necessary :-)))
Heh, well, I use the Dvorak layout, so it's not really an option for me
anyway. I will continue to feign ignorance when I can't be bothered
poking at the character map, because those Alt+032348902935092 codes are
too difficult to remember if you're only going to use them once every
now and again. The greatest key ever invented for the computer keyboard
has surely got to be the Compose key aka Multi key, which lets you make
ae ligatures my typing the sequence compose, a, e or a-acute by typing
compose, a, apostrophe (kindof it turns the next key you type into a
dead key). It's a real shame it's not available by default on any
keyboards/operating system's except Sun's.
--
Tristan.
Messages in this topic (26)
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2c. Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel correspondences
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 22, 2008 7:14 pm ((PDT))
On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 10:05 PM, Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The greatest key ever invented for the computer keyboard
> has surely got to be the Compose key aka Multi key, which lets you make
> ae ligatures my typing the sequence compose, a, e or a-acute by typing
> compose, a, apostrophe (kindof it turns the next key you type into a
> dead key). It's a real shame it's not available by default on any
> keyboards/operating system's except Sun's.
Not true. You can do that in Linux (SCIM comes out of the box on
Ubuntu). I use the OS X "U.S. Extended" keyboard mapping, which works
similarly, but the mappings are mnemonic instead of literal. The
"dead acute accent" key is option + e, presumably because that's the
most frequent letter that gets an acute accent. Similarly, option + u
for diaresis/umlaut, option + a for macron, option + n for tilde.
Grave accent is option + `, though.
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (26)
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2d. Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel correspondences
Posted by: "Tristan McLeay" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 22, 2008 7:44 pm ((PDT))
Mark J. Reed wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 10:05 PM, Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> The greatest key ever invented for the computer keyboard
>> has surely got to be the Compose key aka Multi key, which lets you make
>> ae ligatures my typing the sequence compose, a, e or a-acute by typing
>> compose, a, apostrophe (kindof it turns the next key you type into a
>> dead key). It's a real shame it's not available by default on any
>> keyboards/operating system's except Sun's.
>
> Not true. You can do that in Linux (SCIM comes out of the box on
> Ubuntu).
I meant enabled by default, I suppose, when I said available. Sun
keyboards have a key labelled "Compose", with an associated LED (like
the caps/scroll/num lock keys, except on (some?) Sun keyboards they're
embedded in the key instead of separate). If you use Sun's operating
system then when you press the Compose key the LED comes on and you can
then type "a e" and get an ash.
On Linux if you have a Sun keyboard, you can enable this functionality,
but by default the key acts as the menu key (the one between the right
hand Windows and Ctrl keys on a PC keyboard). Also, I've never been able
to make the LED come on in Linux on my Sun keyboard.
I'm not sure what SCIM is, but you don't need any extra programs ---
there's been a setting in X11's config for as long as I can remember to
switch the menu key into a compose key. It's just that the menu key is
so useless and the compose key so useful, that I really think the
compose key should be available by default rather than firstly having to
know it exists and secondly having to actually go and enable it.
>I use the OS X "U.S. Extended" keyboard mapping, which works
> similarly, but the mappings are mnemonic instead of literal. The
> "dead acute accent" key is option + e, presumably because that's the
> most frequent letter that gets an acute accent. Similarly, option + u
> for diaresis/umlaut, option + a for macron, option + n for tilde.
> Grave accent is option + `, though.
Well, that's not exactly the same because you still have to know what
keys do what. That's the thing I like most about compose keys --- you
never need to memorise a rarely-used combination or check it up; as long
as you know what the letter looks like or what it sounds like, your
guess is very likely right. So "compose t h" is one way to get a thorn,
but "compose b p" also works. (There's exceptions for historical reasons
--- in particular I'm always tripped up by hyphen which means "tilde if
the result exists in Latin-1, but macron otherwise", even though macrons
don't exist in Latin-1 at all, and tilde does its job perfectly well.)
--
Tristan.
Messages in this topic (26)
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2e. Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel correspondences
Posted by: "John Vertical" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 23, 2008 1:27 am ((PDT))
On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:57:58 -0400, ROGER MILLS wrote:
>Mark J. Reed wrote:
>>
>>Right-alt (a.k.a. Alt Gr) only works with the keyboard set to US Intl,
>>which might have other undesired effects (like turning some
>>punctuation marks into dead keys).
>
>True, but it saves a lot of effort if you do much with Spanish/French, even
>German...not to mention conlangy stuff............You just have to get used
>to hitting the space bar when necessary :-)))
I can see the point for circumflex and tilde, but what do you ever need a free-
standing acute, grave or trema for, anyway? ASCII art?
*wikipedia*
Oh, I see, acute and trema are made out of apostrophe and quotation mark...
John Vertical
Messages in this topic (26)
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2f. Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel correspondences
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 23, 2008 5:21 am ((PDT))
And the grave is made out of the "backtick" character (`), which is
used for a variety of purposes in UNIX shells and programming
languages inspired thereby, and also serves as a distinct opening
single quotation mark in some legacy ASCII-only apps. Statistically,
I type ` many orders of magnitude more often than any gravely-accented
letters.
On 7/23/08, John Vertical <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:57:58 -0400, ROGER MILLS wrote:
>>Mark J. Reed wrote:
>>>
>>>Right-alt (a.k.a. Alt Gr) only works with the keyboard set to US Intl,
>>>which might have other undesired effects (like turning some
>>>punctuation marks into dead keys).
>>
>>True, but it saves a lot of effort if you do much with Spanish/French, even
>>German...not to mention conlangy stuff............You just have to get used
>>to hitting the space bar when necessary :-)))
>
> I can see the point for circumflex and tilde, but what do you ever need a
> free-
> standing acute, grave or trema for, anyway? ASCII art?
>
> *wikipedia*
> Oh, I see, acute and trema are made out of apostrophe and quotation mark...
>
> John Vertical
>
--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (26)
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3.1. Re: Scots.
Posted by: "Daniel Prohaska" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 23, 2008 12:42 am ((PDT))
One example is <window> from ON <vindauga>.
Dan
From: Tristan McLeay
Sent: Sunday, July 20, 2008 7:12 AM
On 20.07.2008 06:59:35 Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> On 2008-07-19 Lars Finsen wrote:
> > Very interesting. Perhaps the solution is that Modern English dream
> > is a borrowing from O.N. draumr "dream"?
> >
>
> No, in that case it wouldn't show au > ea.
"Have you got any examples of actual borrowings from ON au and what they
become in English? Also, isn't it possible that the meanings were carried
across to English phonetic form --- effectively a borrowing when the
languages are so close that you can recognise equivalent words in other
dialects.
--
Tristan."
Messages in this topic (30)
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3.2. Re: Scots.
Posted by: "Lars Finsen" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 23, 2008 8:01 am ((PDT))
Den 22. jul. 2008 kl. 13.16 skreiv Philip Newton:
> Did this inspire you to do something similar with Þrjótrunn -- that
> is, use not only words produced by the full sound change algorithm but
> also ones from partial or slightly different versions of it, to mimic
> this "blend of dialects" effect?
I don't know about Henrik, but this phenomenon is common in Urianian
at least. The highland dialects have voicing changes that sets them
apart from the lowland dialects, and since the cultural centre
formerly was in the lowlands, many power and administration words
have been adopted from lowland Urianian. Also, many foreign loanwords
have been adapted to lowland before they were borrowed further
Messages in this topic (30)
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3.3. Re: Scots.
Posted by: "Lars Finsen" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:06 am ((PDT))
I wrote:
>
> I don't know about Henrik, but this phenomenon is common in
> Urianian at least. The highland dialects have voicing changes that
> sets them apart from the lowland dialects, and since the cultural
> centre formerly was in the lowlands, many power and administration
> words have been adopted from lowland Urianian. Also, many foreign
> loanwords have been adapted to lowland before they were borrowed
> further
Hups... that one got away a little too fast. Anyway the point is
clear. Actually I meant to delete it, because I couldn't find any
examples, then clicked Send instead. But I looked in the wrong place.
Here are a few examples:
nobot - morning star; serviceman wielding same
Occurs with a t in highland names, where it should have a d.
kuntiak - dog breeder
Highland name, whereas 'dog' in highland Urianian is 'gon'.
vaslim - archaic name for physician/healer, highland: fizlum
Occurs in highland names such as Vaslam.
LEF
Messages in this topic (30)
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3.4. Re: Scots.
Posted by: "Henrik Theiling" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:09 am ((PDT))
Hi!
Philip Newton writes:
> On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 16:24, Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> When I did Þrjótrunn, the frustration was similar for Icelandic sound
>> changes. Dunno whether it was less extreme (probably, I'd suppose),
>> since I never tried to closely analyse High German, but many, many
>> words in Icelandic where from different dialects at different stages
>> of language development, so any attempt to get my sound changer 100%
>> like Modern Icelandic just had to fail.
>
> Did this inspire you to do something similar with Þrjótrunn -- that
> is, use not only words produced by the full sound change algorithm but
> also ones from partial or slightly different versions of it, to mimic
> this "blend of dialects" effect?
Yes, I did try different sets of sound changes, modelled from the
Icelandic examples. The sound shifter has a lot of options. So it
kind of came automatically by some words sounding 'more right' when
different sound changes were applied for which Icelandic also had
different examples. Then I selected those I felt sounded best/most
Icelandic. But there is no explicit planning of certain dialects
contributing this, other that, or anything like this.
There is some planing about which languages contributed which loans,
however, but that's a different thing. E.g. Germanic provides a lot
of words for Northern European plants (björkur = birch) and landscape
peculiarities (e.g. fjörður = fjord).
**Henrik
Messages in this topic (30)
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4a. Re: OE diphthongs/breaking
Posted by: "Daniel Prohaska" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 23, 2008 12:45 am ((PDT))
�Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> On 2008-07-21 Tristan McLeay wrote:
> > Yes indeed. I observed in an earlier email that
> > in Australian English the phone corresponding to
> > RP /au/ is very similar to the OE vowel
> > i.e.a backing diphthong of which both segments
> > are low.
>
> Also some dialects have a /ai/ > /aM/ shift!
>
> I don't want to spoil the fun or anything, but
> this might be 'evidence' that the OE vowel
> resulting from Germanic *au and written _ea_ was
> actually a diphthong and not a back monophthong.
> In the diphthongist--back-monophthongist debate I
> am a compromissist in that I believe the so-
> called 'long diphthongs' were actual diphtongs
> _ea, eo, io/ie_ /&@/, /EV/ or /e7/ -- actually of�
My supposition is that the OE diphthongs were actual diphthongs, not
monophthongs, though widespread monophthongisation occurred in the later OE
period.
�(I thought "io" was a variant of "eo", not of "ie", which is the i-mutation
of "ea" and "eo", no?)�
<io> can be:
- West Saxon, later <eo>, = (1) Germanic *I by breaking, as
<liornian> �learn�, <miox> �manure�; = (2) Germanic *I by u- and a/o-umlaut,
as <cliopung> �calling�, <mioluc> �milk�, <liofast> �thou livest�;
- Anglian and Kentish by u-umlaut = West Saxon <i> (before single
consonants except labials and liquids), as <liomu> �limbs�, <nio�or>
�lower�, <siodu> �custom�, <sionu> �sinew�, cf. West Saxon <limu, ni�or,
sidu, sinu>;
- Anglian and Kentish by o/a-umlaut = West Saxon <i>: <nioman>
�take�, <nioma�> �they take�, cf. West Saxon <niman, nima�>;
- Northumbrian and Kentish = West Saxon <ie>, i-umlaut of <io>,
Germanic *I, as <hiorde> �shepherd�, <iorre> �angry�, cf. West Saxon
<hierde, ierre>;
- Kentish = West Saxon <eo> by breaking before r +consonant, as
<hiorte> �heart�, <ior�e> �earth�, <stiorre> �star�, cf. West Saxon <heorte,
eor�e, steorre>;
- Kentish by o/a-umlaut = Anglian and West Saxon <i> before velar
consoants, as <stiocian> �prick�, cf. Anglian and West Saxon <stician>;
- Mercian beside <eo> = West Saxon <ie>, i-umlaut of <io>, as
<iorre, eorre> �angry�, <heorde, heorde> �shepherd�, cf. West Saxon <iorre,
hierde>;
<�o> can be:
- West Saxon, later <�o>, = (1) Germanic *iu, as <ge��ode, ge��ode>
�language�, <l�ode, l�ode> �people�, <��ostre, ��ostre> �dark�; = (2)
Germanic *I or *ij + back vowel, as <f�ond, f�ond> �fiend, enemy�, <fr�ond,
fr�ond> �friend�, <�r�o, �r�o> (neuter plural) < *�riju �three�; = (3)
Germanic *� by breaking before *h and *ht, as <��on, ��on> (Old High German
<d�han>) �thrive�, <l�oh, l�oh> (Old High German <l�h>) �lend (2nd person
imperative singular)�;
- Kentish, beside <�a>, = (1) Mercian and West Saxon <�o>, Germanic
*eu, as <d�op, d�ap> �deep�, <d�or> �deer�, <l�of> �dear�, cf. Mercian and
West Saxon <d�op, d�or, l�of>; = (2) West Saxon <�e>, i-imlaut of <�o>,
Germanic *iu, as <d�ore, d�are> �dear�, <l�ohtan> �give light�, cf. West
Saxon <d�ere, l�ehtan>;
- Mercian, beside <�o>, = West Saxon <�e>, i-umlaut of <�o>, as
<d�ore, d�ore> �deer�, <l�ohtan, l�ohtan> �give light�, West Saxon <d�ere,
l�ehtan>;
> mean mid height of course! --, /iM/ while the so-
> called 'short diphthongs' were short back or
> central unrounded monophthongs /3/--/6/, /V/--
> /7/, /i\/--/M/.
�I probably don't know as much as you on this area, but having three low
short unrounded vowels (i.e. /&/=ae /6/=ea /A/=a) seems very difficult and
unlikely. I'm not aware of any language that distinguishes more than two
short low vowels of the same rounding. (Forgive me, I don't know how to type
ash on this Windows keyboard.)�
I agree. I�m quite traditionalist in that I believe that a back /U/-like
glide was inserted between the original short vowel and the breaking
environment. These new �short� (syllabically light) diphthongs */{U/ and
*/eU/, as well as the old (syllabically heavy) diphthongs */{:U/ (+ the
reflex of �broken� */{:/ > */{:U/), and */i:U/ (+ the reflex of �broken�
*/i:/ > */i:U/) underwent a development that Roger Lass calls �Diphthong
Height Harmony�, i.e. the second element of the diphthong is brought to the
same hight as the dominant first element. (Examples from Lass 1994, 1997):
West Germanic examples: *ald, *elx, *baum, *na:x, *biudan, *li:xt;
After OE breaking: *{Uld, *eUlx, *b{:Um, *n{:Ux, *bi:UdAn, *li:Uxt;
Diphthong Hight Harmony: *{Ald, *eolx, *b{:Am, *n{:Ax, *be:odAn, *le:oxt;
�And aside from when "ea", "eo" represent palatalisation before /A, o, u/,
ISTR that short "ea"/"eo" only actually come from breaking ... if that's
right, it seems to me that the diphthong reading is the simplest and best.
Eventually the vowels which result from breaking (almost always) merge back
in with the original unbroken vowel, which I think makes it even more likely
they're merely short diphthongs.
Can short "ea", "eo" ever contrast with short "ae, e"?�
Not to my knowledge. They seem to have started out as allophones, but
subsequent developments have lead to partial phonemic re-distribution.
�As for "ie" it is a sound which doesn't make much sense. It merges with y
eventually --- at least in the West Saxon standard --- yet comes from
unrounded vowels + i-mutation. I have seen three --- now four different
readings for it (/i(:)e, i(:)y, I(:), (i:)M/). None had seemed to
account for all the data --- how does the decidedly front unrounded /ie/
merge with /y/ (but not /i/)? how does i-mutation introduce rounding? (If I
squint *just*so* I can see how /I(:)/ might merge with /y(:)/ but not
/i(:)/, but I find it difficult to believe any language would
distinguish all four of /i: i I: I/. Once again the only language I'm aware
of that comes close is my dialect, although there's only three phonemes
there ~[I:(@) Ii I]. Icelandic is ruled out on the grounds that the four
vowels [i: i I: I] only make a two-way contrast /i I/ which permits a
greater range of tactics to distinguish the two phonemes.)�
Well, following Lass I would say that since i-umlaut occurred after breaking
the � i-umlauted reflex of */iu/ was */iy/, spelt <ie>. The assimilation of
*/iy/ > /y/ in later West Saxon is not difficult to explain.
�In short I have no idea what to consider "ie". Your notion is somewhat
tempting --- as long as breaking is an ongoing change caused by the phonetic
characteristics of the consonants, then [&A e7] -> [iM] -> [M] is likely
enough, and then [M] and [y] sound pretty similar even if they're pretty
different in how they're articulated. I just find that a bit harder to
swallow for the long diphthongs.�
As do I.
> That the OE writing system could use the same
> symbols for both should not be surprising: they
> were similar if not identical and could be
> construed as long--short pairs, and most
> importantly breaking of long vowels **had**
> probably resulted in just these diphthongal
> qualities whi�le breaking of short vowels had
> resulted in these short monophthongs. The *au >
> /&@/ shift just increased the incidence of that
> diphthong.
I have my problems with the schwa-glide. Early OE is such an
�unschwa�-language, there are so many developments that can only be easily
explained by vowel harmony between the stressed and the unstressed
syllables. Even the weaker second elements of the diphthongs harmonise with
the vowels and consonants in the following unstressed syllables. This, to
me, makes schwa-diphthongs unlikely in early Old English. I don�t mean to
rule out, though, that schwa-diphthongs in later Old English may have been a
transitional development towards the late Old English and early Middle
English monophthongs.
Dan
-----Original Message-----
From: Tristan McLeay
Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 2:59 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: OE diphthongs/breaking
Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> On 2008-07-21 Tristan McLeay wrote:
> > Yes indeed. I observed in an earlier email that
> > in Australian English the phone corresponding to
> > RP /au/ is very similar to the OE vowel
> > i.e.a backing diphthong of which both segments
> > are low.
>
> Also some dialects have a /ai/ > /aM/ shift!
>
> I don't want to spoil the fun or anything, but
> this might be 'evidence' that the OE vowel
> resulting from Germanic *au and written _ea_ was
> actually a diphthong and not a back monophthong.
> In the diphthongist--back-monophthongist debate I
> am a compromissist in that I believe the so-
> called 'long diphthongs' were actual diphtongs
> _ea, eo, io/ie_ /&@/, /EV/ or /e7/ -- actually of
(I thought "io" was a variant of "eo", not of "ie", which is the i-mutation
of "ea" and "eo", no?)
> mean mid height of course! --, /iM/ while the so-
> called 'short diphthongs' were short back or
> central unrounded monophthongs /3/--/6/, /V/--
> /7/, /i\/--/M/.
I probably don't know as much as you on this area, but having three low
short unrounded vowels (i.e. /&/=ae /6/=ea /A/=a) seems very difficult and
unlikely. I'm not aware of any language that distinguishes more than two
short low vowels of the same rounding. (Forgive me, I don't know how to type
ash on this Windows keyboard.)
And aside from when "ea", "eo" represent palatalisation before /A, o, u/,
ISTR that short "ea"/"eo" only actually actually come from breaking ... if
that's right, it seems to me that the diphthong reading is the simplest and
best. Eventually the vowels which result from breaking (almost always) merge
back in with the original unbroken vowel, which I think makes it even more
likely they're merely short diphthongs.
Can short "ea", "eo" ever contrast with short "ae, e"?
As for "ie" it is a sound which doesn't make much sense. It merges with y
eventually --- at least in the West Saxon standard --- yet comes from
unrounded vowels + i-mutation. I have seen three --- now four different
readings for it (/i(:)e, i(:)y, I(:), (i:)M/). None had seemed to
account for all the data --- how does the decidedly front unrounded /ie/
merge with /y/ (but not /i/)? how does i-mutation introduce rounding? (If I
squint *just*so* I can see how /I(:)/ might merge with /y(:)/ but not
/i(:)/, but I find it difficult to believe any language would
distinguish all four of /i: i I: I/. Once again the only language I'm aware
of that comes close is my dialect, although there's only three phonemes
there ~[I:(@) Ii I]. Icelandic is ruled out on the grounds that the four
vowels [i: i I: I] only make a two-way contrast /i I/ which permits a
greater range of tactics to distinguish the two phonemes.)
In short I have no idea what to consider "ie". Your notion is somewhat
tempting --- as long as breaking is an ongoing change caused by the phonetic
characteristics of the consonants, then [&A e7] -> [iM] -> [M] is likely
enough, and then [M] and [y] sound pretty similar even if they're pretty
different in how they're articulated. I just find that a bit harder to
swallow for the long diphthongs.
> That the OE writing system could use the same
> symbols for both should not be surprising: they
> were similar if not identical and could be
> construed as long--short pairs, and most
> importantly breaking of long vowels **had**
> probably resulted in just these diphthongal
> qualities whi�le breaking of short vowels had
> resulted in these short monophthongs. The *au >
> /&@/ shift just increased the incidence of that
> diphthong.
FWIW although I don't think any dictionary will agree with me, pairs like
"vowel" and "Val" or "Powell" and "pal" are homophones or nearly so in these
parts.
>Contrary to belief the OE writing
> system was by no means 'perfect' or 'one to one':
Hence one reason I like it so much =)
--
Tristan.
Messages in this topic (26)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5a. OT: Dvorak (Was: Re: OE diphthongs/breaking (was: Re: Germanic vowel
Posted by: "René Uittenbogaard" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 23, 2008 1:25 am ((PDT))
2008/7/23 Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
> Heh, well, I use the Dvorak layout, so it's not really an option for me
Which makes me curious... How many people are there on this list that
use Dvorak? I do.
René
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
5b. Re: OT: Dvorak
Posted by: "Henrik Theiling" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:15 am ((PDT))
Hi!
René Uittenbogaard writes:
> 2008/7/23 Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>>
>> Heh, well, I use the Dvorak layout, so it's not really an option for me
>
> Which makes me curious... How many people are there on this list that
> use Dvorak? I do.
Me too.
At work at least, where there's a standalone keyboard. At home I type
on my laptop directly, which has a German QUERTZ layout.
**Henrik
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
6. Re: Keyboards (was OE diphthongs/breaking)
Posted by: "David McCann" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 23, 2008 8:58 am ((PDT))
On Tue, 2008-07-22, Mark J. Reed wrote:
> Right-alt (a.k.a. Alt Gr) only works with the keyboard set to US Intl,
> which might have other undesired effects (like turning some
> punctuation marks into dead keys).
>
> I don't much use Windows, so I don't have a good setup for typing
> non-ASCII characters on it. I tend to resort to the Character Map
> utility for anything except the characters useful for the Spanish
> language, whose numpad codes I've memorized (161='¡', 191='¿',
> 225='á', 233='é', 237='í', 241='ñ', 243='ó', 250='ú', 252='ü').
Do Windows users know that you can get a keyboard layout modification
program (free!) from Microsoft's website? I can't vouch for it, since
I've never had a computer running Windows, but it sounds a good idea. Of
course, Linux keyboard drivers are plain text, so anyone can rewrite
them. On mine, Alt-Gr+a is ə; unless I've pressed GroupShift (aka Menu),
when it becomes ☉. Entering codes takes me back to MDSOS in the 80s: no
wonder so many people still use that ghastly SAMPA rubbish.
Where can you get þ from Compose-b-p, Tristan? I've never seen it listed
for Solaris and it certainly doesn't work on my Linux PC.
Messages in this topic (1)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
7. Is this already a conlang?
Posted by: "Holger Ebermann" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:27 am ((PDT))
Ok, it's not quite a serious question, but I found these "fragments" of an
invented language within a book of BO CARPELAN: JULIUS BLOM - ETT HUVUD FÖR
SIG. Stockholm 1982.
There is a little boy who invents a language to talk to plants and animals.
He speaks out some words only, but the author tells us, that even Julius,
the main acting person and (fictional) inventor of the language, doesn't
know their meaning. The words are (cited from the german translation 1986,
but I think the words remained unchanged):
"Bombala! Danios! Uhuru! Sta maj? Biba!"
And then it ends, all the book there is never anything about the language
again. The word-material is quite bad, one can only find out that there are
capital letters and at least an alphabet of
a b d i j m n o r s t u
But nothing can be said about the meaning of the words...
So, I only wanted to share my fascination for this little fragment and I
hope you enjoy this as much as I did :) Greetings from Leipzig, Holger.
Messages in this topic (1)
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