Re: Y not? (was: Of Haa/hhet & other matters)

On Sun, Jan 23, 2005 at 01:42:59PM +0100, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> Quoting Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>:
>
JMW> Of the many different uses of the letter |y|, I like best that Welsh use,
JMW> since the other uses of |y| can be represented with other letters, but
JMW> there's no other letter for that one.

AJ> Needless to say, I, as a Swede, disagree; |y| is, as even the IPA accepts,
AJ>  to be used for /y/! This moreover is the original use of the letter.

RB> Yes it was, but I assume you would not use the same argument for |c| = /k/
RB>   and |v| = /w/   ;)

AJ> You assume to much. I'm quite inclined to think of /k/ as the
AJ> default reading of |c|, and as for |v|, if I'm not mistaken, by the
AJ> time it was accepted as a letter separate from |u|, the Latin
AJ> consonant was generally pronounced as [v].

Yes, it certainly was, since the separation of I/J and U/V was a very
late development.  Medieval IIRC.  Whereas the |v| = [v] change had
happened earlier, triggering the adoption of the digraph |vv|,
which eventually became |w|, for [w] in new borrowings.  But |y| was no
longer [y] by that point, either.  If you're going to base things on
"original use", you have to be consistent about what you consider
"original".

I don't much like |y| for [@], but I'm at a loss for a better
alternative.

> Do as the Azeri and adopt the IPA 'reversed e' sign.
As with |ŋ|, I just don't much like the way |ə| looks.

In Okaikiar I adopted |'| for [@], but have come to dislike that, as
well.  It works well for medial schwas, but doesn't look right at all
for initial/final ones, e.g. |zer'| for [zE.r@].

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