Re: Silent E

Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...> wrote:

> As for silent letters, I believe Irish has a rule that palatalized
> consonants can only be surrounded by letters signifying fornt vowels,
> and unpalatalized can only be sourrounded by letters for back vowels
> (ceol le ceol, leathan le leathan, I believe the rule is called, may be
> wrong here). So they insert letters which are not read, but merely
> indicate whether the consonant is palatalized or not (slender/broad, or
> soft/firm in Russian notation)
It's vowels that are used. The rule `leathan le leathan, caol le caol' refers to
matching the vowel type on one side of a consonant cluster with the same type
on the other. If you had `i' or `e' on one side, you'd have to have `i' or `e'
on the other, the same with `a', `o', and `u'.

K.

--
Keith Gaughan                         In the land of the blind, the
kmgaughan@eircom.net                    one-eyed man is a heretic
http://www.geocities.com/keithgaughan/ [Temporarily]