Re: Digraphic letters (was: Dutch "ij")

Ray Brown wrote, quoting myself:

> Of the languages that actually do include digraphs as separate 'letters'
> of the alphabet, e.g. Spanish & Welsh, I am not aware of any that have
> two separate words, one denoting single character alphabet members only,
> and another word denoting each & every member of the alphabet. Can you
> give me any actual examples?
No (conlangs don't count, methinks) but that's beside the point - it
suffices that there could /in theory/ be two such words, to make the
point that "letter" does not have a single objective definition.

> > All conlangers know that translation is not an exact
> > science because words denoting complex ideas are rarely truly
> > identical in two languages, and all I'm doing is pointing out
>
> I have been well aware of that for the past half-century! Indeed, I have
> pointed this out once or twice on Conlang myself.
>
> > that "letter" is an idea complex enough for this principle to
> > apply.
>
> As you now admit "letter" is a complex idea, I'm not sure what you
> are trying to say. I was under the impression you were insisting on
> the definition "one letter" = "one character", and that, e.g. {ch}
> must always be two letters.
No. It's just that I get frustrated [and have done so long before I
knew about Conlang] when people state as an objective fact that
(e.g.) in Welsh 'dd' is a single letter, without acknowledging that
there is any ambiguity about that statement. People who assert such
things in public often seem unaware that "surely that depends on how
exactly you define 'letter'" is even a sensible response. I'm not
accusing anyone on Conlang of being so lacking, but I've had enough
experience with people failing to acknowledge the point to believe
it worth raising.

Adrian.

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