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<div><font face="Times" color="#000000">Dear All,<br>
<br>
A second edition is being done of my textbook, 1998<i> Historical
Linguistics: an Introduction . </i> Edinburgh
University Press (and 1999 MIT Press) (Lyle Campbell), and I am
writing to ask for advice. Two questions have come up about
which I would especially like to hear opinions. </font><br>
<font face="Times" color="#000000"></font></div>
<div><font face="Times" color="#000000">One is the recommendation that
the spelling be changed from the British spelling of the first edition
(with -ise, -isation, -our [colour], centre, tyre, programme, etc.) to
follow American spelling conventions (with -ize, -isation, -or,
center, tire, program, etc.) for the second. What do you think?
What is your advice, your opinion about this? (Edinburgh
University Press apparently do not mind one way or the other now,
though for the first edition they did want British orthographic
conventions to be followed. Some suggest it would be more
accessible (= sell better?) with American spelling. My guess is
that for several other countries, which orthographic conventions are
followed may matter little, but I wonder to what extent one or the
other may be important for North America or for the UK? In
particular, I wonder whether it makes a significant difference in the
US? (The MIT edition has UK conventions, which were commented on
by some reviewers).)</font></div>
<div><font face="Times" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Times" color="#000000">The second recommendation is
about the phonetic symbols used, and is probably subject to even
stronger feelings: some suggest that the book perhaps should be
changed from the IPA symbols used to represent examples in the first
edition to American phonetic usage. What do you think?
What is your opinion here? In particular, it would be helpful to
know whether IPA or American usage has any advantage or disadvantage
for students in North America. Possibly the differences are not
so great (or at least frequent) except for some vowel symbols and for
certain fricatives and affricates. A problem, though,
comes from the different conventions typically used in the traditions
for different language areas. For example, to use [y] for IPA
[j] in Germanic examples just looks odd/wrong to some scholars.
However, to use [j] for American [y] just seems wrong to others when
used to represent various American Indian languages, and various
Romance languages, and others, where the scholarly tradition is with
"y" not "j" -- (some readers probably noticed some inconsistency
in this regard in this in the first edition, alas -- sorry).
What advice would you offer?</font></div>
<div><font face="Times"
color="#000000"><x-tab>
</x-tab>There is a possible compromise, with, say IPA representations
given first and then with the forms repeated in American phonetics in
parentheses adjacent to the IPA forms. (This might be OK for
some forms, but it could get cumbersome when very many examples
requiring phonetic notation are given in any one place.)
My question is whether there is enough advantage to make giving both
IPA and American usage worthwhile?</font></div>
<div><font face="Times" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Times" color="#000000">Finally, I would be very happy
to receive any comments, advice, recommendations, or corrections which
would be useful for the second edition. (As a preview to the
changes anticipated for the 2nd edition, I hope to correct the typos;
I expect to cull out some of the less accessible examples and
substitute hopefully better ones; I expect to make fairly substantial
changes in the exercises of several chapters, taking out some that
don't seem to work so well and also adding several new ones to give a
better range from easy to intermediate to more challenging cases.
Also, I hope to update and improve the discussion of a few topics.)
Any feedback will be gratefully received.</font></div>
<div><font face="Times" color="#000000"><br>
Many thanks in advance,<br>
Lyle</font></div>
<div><font face="Times" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Times" color="#000000"><br>
<br>
<br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="Times" color="#000000"><br>
<i> </i></font></div>
<div>-- <br>
Professor Lyle Campbell, <br>
Dept. of Linguistics<br>
University of Canterbury<br>
Christchurch, New Zealand<br>
Fax: 64-3-364-2969<br>
Phone: 64-3-364-2242 (office), 64-3-364-2089 (Linguistics dept)</div>
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