Re: USAGE: Cool idioms (was Re: Bibliography)

On Sat, 27 Mar 1999, Tom Wier wrote:

> Danny Wier wrote:
(only now noticed that you have the same surname - are you related?)

> Which reminds me, does anyone have city names or other proper
> names that they spell unphonetically, because of some conhistorical
> or concultural tradition?
The women's names _Raisse_, _Caille_ and the city name _Essle_ -
there's no logical reason for the double 's', which originally
indicated that the preceding vowel was short, but 'ai' is the only
short diphthong anyway, and initial 'e' is also always short.

'Caille' is pronounced with a palatal 'l' (in dialects that have it),
but that would normally be spelled _Calye_.

Also, I've recently taken to spelling the semivowel /j/ as 'y' to
conform with the high closed unrounded vowel (i-with-a-stroke) that
uses the same Valdyan letter, but in proper names starting with it I
still spell it 'j': _ile_ and its alternate _yile_ "half", but
_Jilan_ "little one", originally a nickname but also used as a given
name; _eran_ "free (wo)man", usually pronounced as if spelled
_yeran_, but _Jeran_ "man's name meaning the same". Changing the look
of names is obviously more difficult than just changing the
transcription of words.

   Irina

            Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastinay.
                     irina@rempt.xs4all.nl (myself)
     http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/frontpage.html (English)
    http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/backpage.html (Nederlands)