Jesse Bangs a scris:
> The young native speakers that I met while I was there
You've been there? You lucky stiff!
> actually perceived
> a different rule: |î| at the beginning of words, and |â| elsewhere.
> Also, they spell "to laugh" as |râde|, even
> though it's from *ride.
I think you must be right. I was sure I'd read somewhere that the
spelling reform was based on etymological priniciples, but when I looked
at my textbook it agrees with you: "â was reintroduced in 1993 when the
Romanian Academy resolved that â should replace î in most words... At
the beginning of a word, though, and in compound words formed with în, î
remains."
So I'm either remembering wrong or I read some incorrect information.
> They
> all agreed that the slang contraction pronounced [1s] (from "sunt")
should
> be spelled |îs|, although it doesn't exist in the standard language
and so
> has no "official" spelling.
Wow... I didn't even know that existed! I suppose that's the sort of
thing you have to actually go there to find out about, though...
Thomas