Re: Silent E

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

> Keith Gaughan scripsit:
>
> > The vowel digraphs `ea' and `ai' are single sounds. The two
> > letters in them are of two different types and both are needed
> > to indicate the quality of the consonants surrounding them.
> > That's one of the reasons why you'll find long clusters of
> > vowels in words in Irish.
>
> All well and good: by examining the vowel *letters* surrounding a
> consonant, you can determine if the consonant is broad
> (non-palatalized) or slender (palatalized).  What's hard (to me,
> anyway) is to figure out from the vowel *letters* what vowel
> *sound* is intended.
Russian and Gaelic: two languages with palatalised consonants.

Russian has it easy -- it has it's own alphabet that's suited to writing stuff in it
with. Gaelic, on the other hand, has to make do with an alphabet completely
unsuited to it. Instead it uses a kludge with vowels to get the right effect.
Of course, this means that outsiders look at the language with bewilderment.

I'm not really able to explain it all myself -- it is rather complicated after
all. I'll do the next best thing though and post a link to a reasonable
explaination of the major sounds:
http://www.danann.org/library/gael/vowels.html

For the most part, I think you just have to learn them seeing as there's so many
different combinations. I can say though that the vowel clusters produce pure
vowels and diphthongs in a consistant manner without all that much redundancy.

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]

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