Re: Odd orthography

At 09:59 -0500 on 23.9.1998, Terrence Donnelly wrote:
[snip]

> Do any other languages announce political or lifestyle affiliation
> merely by spelling changes?
>
> -- Terry
In Swedish it used to be the case (up to and including the forties,
roughly) that if there was a possible distingtive Old Orthography spelling
of your surname but you used the New Orthography spelling this signalled
that you had radical leanings (politically, literarily, culturally, and
usually all of it! :)

Few went as far as one of the banner-bearers of the 1907 orthography
reform.  He spelled both his first name and his surname _phonetically_
called himself Fridtjuv B"arj, but I'm pretty sure his mom and dad had
called him Fridtjof Berg.  It is to be noted that the word _berg_
"mountain" wasn't affected by the reform!

Nowadays one can't just alter the spelling of ones surname, so the
spellings of contemporary people at best give a hint that their
grandfathers or great-grandfathers had a radical streak at one time.

/BP


B.Philip. Jonsson <bpj@...>

Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant (Tacitus)
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