Re: creolego "cannibalizes" AND "phagocytates" (wasRe: Gaelic

En réponse à tim talpas <tim@...>:

>
> I've always wondered about the dutch "ij"... people say this all the
> time,
> and as i've never actually seen a dutch person write in dutch, i'm
> really
> not sure what this means...
Just that even when people write with disconnected letters, "ij" will appear as
one letter. Also, "ij" has a single capital form, rendered as "IJ" here.

 is this only in cursive? print? Would one
> ever write an actual ÿ in dutch?
>
When I see people writing in Dutch, their cursive "ij" is really
indistinguishable from a "y" with umlaut. And in print, there is a difference
between the letter "ij" and a simple "i" followed by "j": the space between the
two components of the letter "ij" is smaller than the space between the two
separate letters (it's called "negative kerning" in font language :)) ), and
this difference is visible. Note also that if a store has its name above it
with separate neon letters, "ij" always makes a single letter, not two. Despite
what Boudewijn says, "ij" is seen as a single letter very strongly by most
Dutch people, even though they have no problem approximating it with "i"+"j"
when there is no other possibility (although I've seen quite a few people
preferring to approximate it by "y" instead, especially in capital form).

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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