Re: C (was: Acadon (was: Lingwa de Planeta))

John Vertical wrote:
>>On 8/6/07, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
>>
>>>Thinks: how many different values are or have been given to |c| in
>>>natlangs? I can think of /g/, /k/, /tS/, /ts/, /s/, /dZ/, /c/ and /|/
>>>(dental click).
>>
>>IIRC, it's /D/ in Fijian.
>>
>>Who has /g/ for |c|?
>
>
> Latin, before <G> was invented.
Quite right. I carefully wrote "are or have been."

In fact, of course, /g/ was the original value that C had, the symbol
being ultimately derived, via western Greek, from Semitic 'gimel' - the
3rd letter of the Old Phoenician & the modern Hebrew abjad.

The problem came when the Roman unadvisedly imitated the Etruscan way of
writing /k/, i.e. K before /a/, Q before back vowels and C in other
positions (the Etruscans had no /g/).

That phonemically silly way of writing /k/ eventually got reformed, but
at the expense of using C more often so that the latter represented both
/g/ and /k/. Clearly this was not satisfactory and at some or other
(according to Roman tradition, it was due to guy called Spurius
Carvilius Ruga in 230 BCE), it was decided to amend existing
inscriptions by adding a small stroke to the lower curve of C when it
represent /g/, thus quite unnecessarily (after all they still had K), a
new letter was born.

But I guess it saved K from the fate that awaited C   :)
--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
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Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB]

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