Re: reformed Welsh Spelling - comments?
| From: | michael poxon <m.poxon@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, December 4, 2003, 23:59 |
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It must be reading all that Welsh that drove me crazy! For orthographic
beauty in the Celtic langs, you can't beat Breton, and you can't get worse
than Manx. But on a general conlang note, the "semiotics of letters" I think
is a relevant issue. Letters that are physically angular like [k] convey a
different image of the conculture IMO than do 'Latinate' forms with [c].
They look somehow more 'primitive'. How far this derives from our own
written-script as distinct from 'scratched-script' history I'm not sure.
When we see letters composed of straight lines, do we think "scratching
runes - marauding Vikings - end of civilisation as we know it" as distinct
from cursive forms which say "Learning - classical cultures - reasonable
behaviour" and everything that these crude discriminations imply? I find
Arabic script unbelievably beautiful, but someone I know hates it because it
"looks like swords".
PS. "Giff, gaff, daly, daly, dwg, dwg". I rest my case.
Mike
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Mulraney" <ataltanie@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 12:31 AM
Subject: Re: reformed Welsh Spelling - comments?
> michael poxon wrote:
> > I realise the temptation. Welsh sounds so beautiful but looks awful.
>
> You are evidently crazy :). My main objection to reforming Welsh
orthography,
> is that, quite apart from minor reasons like it not needing reform, Welsh
> looks like nothing else on earth, and looks as beautiful as it sounds,
too.
>
> --
> Stephen Mulraney ataltane@ataltane.net
http://livejournal.com/~ataltane
> If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he
> hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, how-
> ever measured or far away. -- Henry David Thoreau