On Mon, 9 Sep 2002, Marco Cimarosti wrote: > Mark Davis wrote: >> 4. List "Nonvowels" - ambiguous letters that are probably vowels: >> U+0059 # (Y) LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y >> U+0079 # (y) LATIN SMALL LETTER Y > > I would consider all these as vowels, although I know there is much room for > errors: > - Y is historically a vowel, and it still is mainly a vowel in all languages > using it (including English and French: "système", "quickly"). In English > and French, however, it can be a consonant (e.g., "yes"). In orthographies > derived from English-based romanizations (e.g., Pinyin), it is always a > consonant.
This vowel vs. consonant distinction is really unsatisfyingly simplistic. It sounds like the (US) grade-school list of vowels: "a, e, i, o, U ... and sometimes y". About Pinyin, some sources would disagree and set up a zero initial, so that (initial) <y> is just a way to write <i> [i] (clearly a vowel) occurring at the beginning of syllables. I know you meant to give an example of <y> used as a glide or approximant (which laymen would consider a "consonant"), and there are surely better examples of it, but we can't always judge the origin or inspirations of romanization systems, either (Pinyin comes up again--some people are still unconvinced that it is free of Cyrillic or Albanian influences). Thomas Chan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
