Re: orthographical question.

Barry Garcia wrote:
>And then you have Tagalog which doesnt use any accents on words, even
>though proper stress is crucial to knowing the meaning.  If i were to
>reform it, i would make set a rule that accents had to be written.>
Indeed.  I wonder why they abandoned the perfectly good Spanish system--
spite? national pride? neglect of the native langs. during US colonialism?

Tagalog:
No accent mark for penultimate CVCV or CVCVC (excluding final /?/)
No accent mark for ultimate stress (automatic) in case of CVCCV(C) (ditto)
Acute accent for ultimate CVCV or CVCVC (ditto)
Grave accent _on the final V_ for CVCV? (glottal stop), but penult. stress
Circumflex on the final V for CV(C)CV?, ultimate stress.

Dialect forms with internal /?/ used a hyphen: big-at [big'?at], std. bigát
'heavy'; gab-i, std. gabí 'night'.

That system works for Tagalog and Bisayan, and probably others. Laktaw's
19l4 dictionary used it; Panganiban's _Pilipino_ dict. 1970 still uses it.
If the Spaniards  had thought to symbolize the glottal stop, they could have
gotten away with just one written accent mark, as Zorc does in his Core
Etymological Dict. (publ. in fascicles beginning in the early 80s-- I've no
idea how widely available it is, but it's fascinating work).