Re: Piat (was: Another NatLang i like)
| From: | Boudewijn Rempt <bsarempt@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, July 18, 1999, 23:06 |
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On Thu, 15 Jul 1999, John Cowan wrote:
>
> When the orthography of Dutch was being nailed down, it was found that
> the Dutch in the Netherlands preferred the spelling
> "cultuur", to avoid being too German, whereas their neighbors in
> Belgium preferred "kultuur", to avoid being too French.
>
Actually, we've just been through a k'ish phase in our spelling, a
time when everything customarily spelled with a _c_ was spelled with a
_k_. Other interesting things where _teater_ for _theater_ 'theatre',
and _aksie_ for _aktie_ 'action'. But _kultuur_ for _cultuur_ didn't
catch on - the spelling kept reminding people of _kul_, which means,
basically, 'nonsense, bullshit'... I'm not going to start talking about
our latest reformed spelling.
Suffice it to say that the Charyans have never decided upon an 'official'
spelling for any of their languages, they consider spelling an individual
thing which belongs to the preferred style of the author, or to his
particular ethnicity.
Boudewijn Rempt | http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt