Re: Request for help, Spanish

On Mon, 11 Oct 1999, Eric Christopherson wrote:

> The graph <=F1> started out as an <n> with a line over it, to indicate a
> 'long' or double <n>, so yes, originally it was written <nn>. The line
> became a tilde eventually. Medieval scribes apparently also put lines ove=
r
> vowels to show that they were leaving out a nasal which should be
> pronounced; why the <=F1> graph caught on in Spanish but the vowels with
> tildes or macrons did not, I don't know. As for <ll>, perhaps the height =
of
> the letter <l> prevented putting a line over it, or maybe the macron/tild=
e
> was associated mainly with nasals.
They did that in English, too, which makes it damned hard to read medieval
MSs.  After all, this:

 ---
coui

is "communion."