Re: USAGE: Yet another few questions about Welsh.

Mark J. Reed scripsit:

> I assume from the orthography that an analogous process happened in
> other consonant groups as well - for instance, <ll>=/K/ was presumably
> at one time /l:/, and something analogous to the VL geminate step happened
> with the fricatives, hence <ff>=/f:/=>/f/ (while  <f>=/f/=>/v/).  Right?
And likewise with Spanish ll and nn (now written ñ).  But f and
ff is another matter:  Welsh couldn't do without an orthographical
distinction between [u] and [v], and coopted "f" for the latter, using
"ff" conventionally for [f].  (English survived until the 16th century
before starting to make the u/v distinction systematically, and some things
still reflect that: e.g. "v" never occurs finally or doubled in a normal
English word, as those would encode [u] and [w] respectively, so we
write love not lov and liver not livver.

--
John Cowan        http://www.ccil.org/~cowan          jcowan@reutershealth.com
Please leave your values                Check your assumptions.  In fact,
   at the front desk.                      check your assumptions at the door.
     --sign in Paris hotel                   --Cordelia Vorkosigan