Re: Silent E

On Thu, 4 Oct 2001 22:17:47 EDT Colin Halverson <CHalvrson@...>
writes:
> Do any other languages (I am sure there are at least a few) have a
silent
> letter or especially a silent modifying letter (as in English "ate",
the e is
>  silent and makes the a long)???  Where does this come from??  Do
> any of ur conlangs have this??
Well, there's always French, which has that silent final -e, along with
the silent final every-other-letter (unless you're in a liason position),
which is why I've never tried to learn French.  That and that I find it
an aesthetic abomination, to me at least--no offense to Christophe and
any other Francophones out there.

There's also Romanian, which has a silent final {i}.  At the end of
words, the letter 'i' isn't pronounced, but it causes the letters in
front of it to change in pronunciation some.  Most importantly {c} and
{g} change to [tS] and [dZ] (the sounds in "church" and "job"), giving
pairs like:
duc        /duk/        sounds like "duke"
duci        /dutS/      sounds like "dooch," if that were a word

And I'm learning Thai . . . don't get me started on the bizarre
complications that arise out of that alphabet.  Silent letters and
letters with weird
mysterious functions all over the place

My conlang Tingrizil uses a system similar to the Romanian system, where
consonant pronunciations depend heavily on the surrounding vowels.  I'm
working on reforming the orthography *again* right now, though, so I'll
get back to you when I'm done.

Jesse S. Bangs     Pelíran
jaspax@ juno.com
"There is enough light for those that desire only to see, and enough
darkness for those of a contrary disposition."  --Blaise Pascal

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