Re: Silent E

Hi,
> > >On a side note, is Welsh a Celtic language, a Germanic
> language or like
> > >English?  or what?  Does Welsh or Celtic or Ire (or
> whatever you call that
> > >Irish language) use the silent e?
> >
> > Wels is a celtic language. I dont think it has the "silent
> e". I havent
> > really studied it though.
You've missed a lot!

> Welsh is beautifully orthographic. Once you spot little
> things like the way `f' is pronounced `v' and `ff' is
> pronounced `f', etc. it's almost phonetic. No silent letters
> as far as I remember.
Yes.
Only, it has no absolutely standard norm, and also, you (almost) never
know when 'wy' is read ooo-ee or w-eee...

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)

Bye,
Pavel