Re: Un-neccesary letters (was: Re: New/revised language: Phonology)

On Thursday 20 December 2001 16:56, Andrew Chaney wrote:

> ObConlang: If your language has a native alphabet, does it include
> archaic spellings and such like -ough, kn-, etc?
Possibly more than I can think of right now, but two in Ilaini
immediately come to mind:

- the spurious -n- in the dative of words ending in -is: the dative
of, for instance, _Valdis_ (place name) is _Valdes_, and it's
sometimes spelled as _Valdens_ but the -n- is never pronounced. In
words ending in a vowel or -n itself, the dative ending is -en, and
it was probably that way with the -is words as well at some time in
the past.

- the -ai- spelling of accented /a/, which shows in the name of the
language itself: _Ilaini_ is pronounced [i'lani]. If the syllable
with -ai- is the last of the word, it's pronounced [aj] or [Aj]
depending on dialect, but if it's followed by any syllable at all in
the same word, it becomes [a] (even in dialects that have [Aj].

   Irina

--
           Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
irina@valdyas.org (myself)     http://www.valdyas.org/irina/valdyas