Re: German Spelling Reform (fwd)

On Fri, 13 Aug 1999, andrew wrote:

> On Wed, 11 Aug 1999, FFlores wrote:
>
> > I think Brithenig has /w/ > /gw/ initially... Or was it Kernu?
> > Andrew, Padraic, am I right? Why did you decide to have that change?
> >
> Yes, both Brithenig and Kernu has /gw/ initially.  It is a sound change
> that occurred among the Brythonic languages.  In Brithenig latin v has
> the value /w/ rather than change to /v/.  /v/ only occurs in mutations as
> an initial letter.  A later sound change makes initial /w/ become /gw/ as
> happens in the continental Romance languages.  This sound change is more
> widely applied in Brithenig than them and it is subject to the same rules
> of mutation as /g/.
Most words in Kernu that start with gu, gw are pronounced /w/; u, v or w
are /v/ or rarely /w/.  The gw cluster is a remnant from days of Brithenig
influence on native orthography and pronunciation, and are found quite
frequently in borrowings.  Common people, especially in the West,
continued to say /w/ or /v/ unashamedly. Its use is (halfheartedly)
discouraged anymore, and so persists and sometimes hypercorrects (gwoulps
/'gwujps/ for voulps (fox) or gwarru /gwar'u/ for varru (chappie, lad)).
This is surely a Bad Thing, and more than one school boy has been whacked
for it; but no one seems to be able to do much about it. So the woman's
name Guimier, contrary to the evidence, is pronounced /'wEmjER/ (where R
is no trill r: -er -eor and -oer groups seem to be losing the trilled r,
even when accented, like verbal infinitives:  carer /kar'eR/).

> The Glossarium Damnonum Linguae shows that Kernu has some words that
> begin with v /v/ normally.  In Brithenig the only words that begin with
> f /v/ are borrowings, such as: fodka, vodka.
It also shows a large number of words starting in w, most of which are
pronounced /v/: wenir /vEn'ir/ (come).  The name Wergils, though, is
regularly /'werzhis/. Same goes for a large number of other Classical
names.

Of course there are legions of naughty school boys as say /gwEn'Ir/ as
well...

Padraic.

> >
>
> - andrew.
> --
> Andrew Smith, Intheologus                       hobbit@earthlight.co.nz
>
>     Jesus is working out his salvation; he is about halfway there.
>