Hi Stephen,
> > > Especially since there are four 'phonetic tricks' used for grammatical
> > > reasons - urú (eclipsis), seimhiú (lenition, I think; e.g. /p/->/f/),
> > > and for vowels a sort of i-affection and something related which for
the
> > > moment I'm just calling 'vowel-grading'
>
> > What is the last one about?
>
<snip>
Wow. I can but kneel :-)
> > (BTW in the transliteration at least this looks very much like Tolwd
:-))
>
> > > You mean, it seems to sound similar?
>
> > I don't know, I am uncomofortable with Irish orthography, so I
> > couldn't read it :-)
>
> That's what the X-SAMPA transcription is for ;) But most of it is
> "pronounced how it looks". And it's not REALLY written in Irish
> orthography, just tiny little bits are inspired :)
Yeah. I should have looked better :-) I studied it through and through, but
never saw the SAMPA ;-)
Digression: I've seen a copy of the Mabinogion trsnlated from ENGLISH into
RUSSIAN. That was awful. The beatiful Gwrhyr Gwalstawt Ieithoedd (doesn't it
sound just beatiful,. which means Gwrhyr Interpreter of Tongues, was mae
into "Gwrxir Gvalstat Yaytoyt". This last thing made me remember this
McDonald song - ee-yah-ee-yah-oh....
> > But as a point of visioaesthetics (is this a valid English word?) they
> > do look similar - I use a regular stop + h = spirant scheme, so Tolwd
> > has lots of bh's, th's, dh'and the like
>
> Ah.. I see; I use that scheme irregularly, e.g. <sh> corresponding to
> <s>, but <j> to <z>. I think <z> is a fairly unpleasant looking letter
> ('visioaesthetically'), and <zh> is just out of line in this lang ;)
I also don't like 'z'. And that's why I don't like Breton :-) Compae 'bardd'
with 'barz'... Ouch.
> (the sound it represents, /Z/ only just squeezes in too...)
>
> Is there anything available about Tolwd on the web I could peek at?
>
>
> [Explanation of Welsh nasal mutations snipped]
>
> (Does that sound like we were talking about how the Welsh have big
> noses?). Thanks for the explanation, Pavel. The only reference I have on
> Welsh is something called "A grammar of Middle Welsh" I picked up for a
> pound somewhere, and it has repeatedly rebuffed attempts at reading it ;)
That's worth it. A link of interest to you, perhaps:
http://www.flash.net/~joanmorg/rmw
Pavel