Re: Strangeness of U (was Re: CHAT behove etc (was: Natlag: Middle English imper

Paul Bennett wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Mar 2006 18:30:48 -0500, Joe <joe@...> wrote:
>
>> John Vertical wrote:
>>
>>>> R A Brown wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> it simply dates back to the time when U and V were the same
>>>>> letter.  If _u_ came before a vowel, then it was /v/, but if it
>>>>> came before a  consonant then it was a vowel (with one of the
>>>>> possible  pronunciations of |u|).
>>>>>
>>>>> When the two letters were differentiated, those final Es could'v
>>>>> been  dropped, but most people continued, and still continue, the
>>>>> write  them. It is just habit.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> I see. Final vocalic <ue> as in argue, true, blue etc. is presumably
>>> a  later innovation?
Groan - of course not.

>> I don't know.  Those are all following consonant clusters, where 've'
>> would be an impossible interpretation.
Precisely. I suppose one has to spell it out very carefully. OK - in the
days when U and V were both written with the same letter: if _u_ was
initial & followed by a vowel _or_ came between two vowels, it was read
as /v/.

>
> I missed the beginning of this thread, but I've been checking in from
> time  to time, and I could not keep my big mouth shut any longer.
> Forgive me if  this has been covered...
>
> There was another purpose of "silent" E other than marking |u| -> /v/;
NOBODY has written that this is the only use of silent e. It clearly is not.

> it  also marks Umlaut. Mack /mak/ vs make /mEjk/ (or at least those
> related  classes of sounds)
Nope - not to denote umlaut. It denotes that the vowel before the
consonant is 'long'. Over here it is commonly called the "magic e".
Altho silent in itself, it does have a function, so also: like, poke,
cute etc.

I said quite clearly that I was in favor of dropping final silent -e
*only* when it served no function. The "magic e" does serve a function.
====================================

John Vertical wrote:

[snip]
 >>> Apart from 'thru', I consider the other Merkans reforms to be sensible.
 >
 > Why is that not sensible? It's definitely better than the horrible
 > "through", and the rule that final single vowels are pronounced "long"
 > in monosyllables already exists - extending it to <u> too doesn't seem
 > very radical.

But it doesn't. "Through" does not rhyme with 'pew', it rhymes with
'pooh'. Yes, I know that throughout much of the anglophone world /ju/
becomes just plain /u/ after /r/, but it ain't universally so. Sally
will no doubt recall that in south Wales 'threw' is pronounced ['TrIw].
The spelling 'thru' suggests where 'threw' is pronounced with some
actual realization of the /ju/ diphthong, then 'through' is also. That
is simply wrong.

Also, there is no other precedent for this use of final -u in English.
If you are going to change 'through', it needs IMHO to be considered in
common with -ough generally.

And this is now becoming yet another "English spelling reform" thread,
so I'm opting out at this point. It is the _Conlang_ list after all.

--
Ray
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http://www.carolandray.plus.com
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