Re: digraphs

Hallo!

On Sun, 8 Jul 2007 16:08:17 +0100, R A Brown wrote:

> Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
>  > Hallo!
>  >
>  > On Sat, 7 Jul 2007 12:49:36 +0100, Jeff Rollin wrote:
> [snip]
>  >
>  >>[...] You're also right that "if a conlang
>  >>has a system of lenition similar to Gaelic", it makes sense to use
> digraphs
>  >>to represent /v/ and /f/.
>  >
>  >
>  > Actually, the digraphs are only a jury-rig.  In the actual Irish uncial
>  > script, no h-digraphs are used.
>
> Yes, but I wrote _Gaelic_, not _Irish_. As far I know, the Scots version
> is not ever written in Irish uncials. Also, I understand, the uncial
> script is not much used now in Ireland, except for road signs and public
> notices (I guess tourism is a factor here - it looks more attractive).
> My understanding is that since the mid-20th cent Irish has been written
> in the Roman alphabet and that lenited consonants have always been
> shown, as they are in Scots Gaelic, by digraphs with _h_ and not with a
> dot above the letter.
True.  Uncial script is about as common in modern Ireland as Fraktur
is in modern Germany, i.e. no longer used regularly and when at all,
mainly for decorative purposes.  And then there's Scots Gaelic, which
doesn't use uncial script at all.

> I completely fail to see why digraphs with -h are more 'jury rigged'
> than using a dot (or any other diacritic) to show lenition. In any case,
> the use of digraphs with -h to show lenited plosives has been common in
> transcrptions of Biblical Hebrew. I suspect I could find other examples
> also.
>
> >Instead, they use dots above the letters, which is far more elegant.
>
> Anglophones generally don't find diacritics elegant  ;)
>
> But whether diacritics or digraphs are preferable is very much in the
> eye of the beholder, as the many threads on this subject on this list
> prove.
Yes.  I should not have said "jury-rig".  I did not really want to say
that the dotted letters were better, but I seem to recall that they
are older than the h-digraphs.  Digraphs and diacritics are equally
valid ways of creating new graphemes beyond what the basic alphabet
has to offer, and at any rate, digraphs are easier to type and cause
fewer encoding and rendering problems than uncommon diacritics.

> Better, of course, are discrete symbols    :)
Yes.  And I repeatedly considered changing the orthography of my
Albic languages, using |f| instead of |ph| for /f/, |þ| instead
of |th| for /T/, and |x| instead of |ch| for /x/, but that would
mean changing all my files, and my rationale for the digraph
spellings is that these digraphs are also used in the traditional
orthographies of the modern Albic languages, which are influenced
by Celtic practice.  (There is also |ng| for /N/, and the modern
Albic languages have even more digraphs - |bh|, |dh|, |gh|,
|lh|, |rh|, |sh|, |zh|, for /B/, /D/, /G/, /K/, /r_0/, /S/, /Z/,
respectively.  Diacritics I use on vowels to indicate length and,
in the Macaronesian group, tones; and I use |Ø| for /2/.)

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