Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Dutch "ij"

From:Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@...>
Date:Monday, July 15, 2002, 7:22
 --- Christophe wrote:

> When I see people writing in Dutch, their cursive "ij" is really > indistinguishable from a "y" with umlaut. [...] > Despite what Boudewijn says, "ij" is seen as a single letter very strongly > by most Dutch people, even though they have no problem approximating it > with "i"+"j" when there is no other possibility (although I've seen quite > a few people preferring to approximate it by "y" instead, especially in > capital form).
All true. In lowercase handwriting, there wouldn't be any difference between "i" + "j", "ij", or "ÿ". When handwritten in capitals (for example in the word "IJsland", I was taught to write it as a "Y" with trema, because two separate capitals "I" and "J" would be ugly and inconvenient. Omitting the dots would be incorrect in all cases. Jan ===== "Originality is the art of concealing your source." - Franklin P. Jones __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com