Re: CHAT letter names (was: CHAT Etruscana etc)

On Monday, March 1, 2004, at 08:51 AM, Tristan McLeay wrote:
[snip]

>> This became [atS@] in Old French and our name is
>> borrowed from the Norman
>> French. By normal sound changes it gives us our
>> modern English /ejtS/, the
>> Welsh 'aets' and modern French [aS].
>
> Not everyone is familiar with Welsh orthography :)
Pretty phonemic. [aets] varies from [a1ts] in the north to [a:ts] in South,
  with other variants in between :)

> But
> also, why is it that you use <j> in diphthongs? I
> thought it was the British habit to use <i>? Are you
> being too thoroughly influenced by the Americans on
> the list or are both used in Britain for British
> English? (I know the IPA says both are correct.)
Nope - just the limitations as ASCII. [ai] is strictly two vowels. I would
wish to put inverted breve beneath the 'i' to show that it is non-syllabic,
  but can't, so I use [j] instead.  I was under the impression that this
usage was fairly standard on this list.

[snip]
> And
> shouldn't [zEd@] have become 'zead' (/zi:d/) in
> English? Or did the same thing happen to it as
> happened to 'bread'?
Well, let's go back a bit. The first question surely is: "Shouldn't /ze:ta/
  have become *zoie in French?" The answer is cartainly 'yes'. It didn't,
however; it became 'zède'. We have the interference of "learned influence"
.

Although basic literacy was quite high in the Roman Empire (judging from
surviving graffiti), it fell sharply during the 'Dark Ages' and remained
low through much of the Middle Ages. Letter names just didn't form part of
common speech so learned influence was more marked.

Yes, we'd expect /zEd@/ to become modern /zi:d/ and, indeed (it may be
that an early modern */zi:d/ did give rise to the analogical 'zee' - but
that's only a guess). The retention of the short vowel must, again, be
"learned influence".

 =========================================================================

On Monday, March 1, 2004, at 11:33 AM, Mark J. Reed wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 01, 2004 at 07:51:26PM +1100, Tristan McLeay wrote:
[snip]
>
>> /hy:/? When did ypsilon come about?
>
> The name "ypsilon" is a contraction of the descriptive phrase "y psilon"
> = "simple y", and would be pronounced with an initial /h/ anyway by
> Greek rules of the time.  Ditto for "epsilon".   For that matter, "o
> micron" is "short o", contrasted with "o mega" = "long o".
'sright.

'(h)y psilon' as opposed to '(h)y diphthongos' which we would now say as:
"y written with a single vowel symbol" (i.e. Y) and "y written with two
vowel symbols" (i.e. OI). It dates from the period when OI and Y were both
pronounced as [y] and AFAIK the names are not attested until the Byzantine
era.

Certainly the Romans knew the letter only as 'hy' and the ancient name is
well enough attested in Greek texts. It still survives in the English
adjective 'hyoid' used to describe the bone at the base of the tongue and
meaning 'Y-shaped'.

Likewise 'e psilon' (E) as opposed to 'e diphthonos' (AI), dating from a
time when AI and E were pronounced the same as they still are in modern
Greek.  The older name for E was simply [e].

Likewise the later names 'o micron' and 'o mega' were coined to name the
two letters after length distinction had been lost and the two vowels
became pronounced the same way as they still are in modern Greek. T

===========================================
On Monday, March 1, 2004, at 01:26 PM, Tristan McLeay wrote:

>  --- "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> wrote: > On
[snip]
>> The original message said that the letters have
>> standard pronunciations
>> everywhere, modulo 'lect variations.  Ray pointed
>> out that Z (/zi/ vs
>> /zEd/) was an exception.  You cited H (/ejtS/ vs
>> /hejtS/) as an
>> additional exception, but Ray pointed out that it's
>> not one because that
>> difference falls under the "'lect variations"
>> umbrella.
>
> Oh. I think. I'm still a wee bit confused. How come
> zee/zed isn't a lect variation, but haich/aich is?
Vagaries of English, I guess. haich/aitch are both variants of an earlier
English /a:tS@/ <-- Old French /atS@/ <-- V.L. /akka/. i.e. the variant
pronunciations of essentially the same word.

'zed' and 'zee' are not generally felt to be "the same word" even though
they denote the same thing. They are felt to be different in the way that,
  e.g. 'fawcet' and 'tap' are, and 'diaper' and 'nappies' are. If you count
'fawcet' ~ 'tap' as a dialect variant, then OK zed and zee are.
 =========================================================================
==============

On Monday, March 1, 2004, at 02:40 PM, John Cowan wrote:

> Tristan McLeay scripsit:
>
>> It's not as if h-dropping dialects say aich and
>> h-keeping ones say haich, so it can't be ignored in
>> the same way that /Ar/ vs /a:/ is.*
>
> The reason for aich's popularity, though, is that the dominant dialect
> (back when we had such a thing) used to be h-dropping, and still is,
But only with this word.  The dominant English dialect(s) has/have been
those that normally pronounce initial /h/.

> though it is no longer dominant.  Haich is surely derived from other
> dialects that were not h-dropping.
No - Tristan is quite correct is observing that haitch and aitch do _not_
correspond to otherwise h-dropping and h-retaining dialects. At least,
this is certainly not so in the UK and, obviously, not down under either.
Indeed, IME there is often variation between speakers of the same dialect.

The older name was certainly 'aitch' as I've pointed out above. There can
be little doubt that 'haitch' was originally a hyper-correction. But then,
  in my grandparents generation /o:'tEl/ was the dominant "correct" form
and /ho:'tEl/, /how'tEl/ etc were 'ignorant' spelling pronunciations. Now
/how'tEl/ ~ /h@w'tEl/ are considered "more correct".

Ray
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