LL-L "Orthography" 2002.02.21 (08) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 21.FEB.2002 (08) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian L=Limburgish
 LS=Low Saxon (Low German) S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Orthography

Lowlanders,

Sandy Fleming pointed out the predicaments one finds oneself in when
approaching Scots orthography (reform?).  In particular, he pointed out
that over time readers and writers of Scots have been conditioned to
expect the spelling of their language to generally follow English
principles, that this can interfere with creating a consistently
applicable system (alone for the fact that English spelling is, by and
large, inconsistent), and that, conversely, "normalization," i.e.,
increasing consistency, of Scots spelling may lead to
"un-English"-looking results.  Sandy gave the example of _rose_ vs
_roze_ 'rose' where in the latter the underlying /z/ is represented by
<z>.

Pretty much the same applies in the case of Low Saxon (Low German) in
Germany, where people have been conditioned to expect the spelling of
their language to follow German rules.  This creates similar problems,
especially where, as is the case more often than not, the creators of
spelling systems have little or no understanding of the fundamentals of
phonology, where "looking German" overrides systematic considerations.
For example, you get _Kleed_ [klEIt] 'dress' > _Kleder_ ['klEId3]
'dresses' along the lines of German _Kleid_ [klaIt] > _Kleider_
['klaId at r], both of which are consistent in representing underlying /d/
that in final position is devoiced to [t] by rule.  However, people have
been told to write _wiet_ [vi:t] 'wide', 'far' because German has the
easily recognizable cognate _weit_ [vaIt], but then to write _wieder_
['vi:d3] 'wider', 'farther', 'further' because the underlying /d/
"reappears," while in German not /d/ but /t/ is underlying and we thus
get the equivalent _weiter_ ['vaIt at r].  Similar problems exist in the
spelling of Low Saxon dialects in the Netherlands where people expect
the spelling to follow Dutch principles, even though virtually all
mentally able Netherlanders manage very well learning English, French
and/or German and thus prove their ability to cope with other
orthographic systems.  This mental and emotional dependency on the
orthographic systems of the respective closely related power languages
(which may well be interpreted as lack of emancipation) makes it
virtually impossible to create a truly systematic and at the same time
generally acceptable writing system that can be used inter-regionally,
leave alone internationally.  For example, the Dutch <z> representing
/z/ is unacceptable to people in Germany who associate it with German
<z> representing /ts/ (even though most of them are comfortable with <z>
= /z/ in English and French), and Netherlanders would find <ei> for
[a.I] hardly acceptable where they write <aai> in Low Saxon along Dutch
lines, leave alone German-style <h> to signal long vowels, apart from
the fact that they justifiably see Low Saxon as more closely related to
Dutch than to German and German-style spelling thus as less appropriate.

But let me return to Scots and to the word for 'guide(line)' that
triggered this exchange: <wyce> or <wyse> [w at Is] ~ [waIs] (vs _wyse_
[w at Iz] ~ [waIz] 'to guide').  I suppose a parallel case would be English
nominal <advice> [?d'vaIs] vs verbal <advise> [?ad'vaIz], hence perhaps
using <c> in Scots, apart from the face that in English <...se> usually
signals [...z] and <...ce> always signals [...s].  I guess the <y> is
used to distinguish <wyse> 'to guide' from <wise> 'wise' which,
according to my sources, are homophonous, though in the Chambers'
dictionaries both are spelled <wise> (and the noun is spelled <wice>).

I know that this is not foremost in the minds of Scots spelling
enthusiasts, but since this is a cross-language forum I will mention
that the spelling with <c> (i.e., <wyce> or <wice>) acted as a "cognate
recognition block" for me.  In part this may have been because I look
for cognates in English first when I encounter Scots words for the first
time (as Scots speakers would do, I suppose).  It was only after
mentally dealing with the verb <wyse> that the penny dropped and I
recognized it as a cognate of Low Saxon (Low German) <wiesen> ~ <wiesn>
~ <wi'jzn> (medieval <wysen>), Dutch _wijzen_ and German _weisen_ 'to
point (in a direction)', 'to direct' (> Low Saxon _Wiesfinger_, Dutch
_wijsfinger_ 'index finger').

I realize that, as in English, the final, "silent" <e> indicates that
the preceding vowel is "long" (which in English and Scots usually means
that it is a diphthong).  I suppose this could be adhered to
consistently.  However, this complicates the representation of the /s/
vs /z/ contrast.  If English spelling did not serve as the model, then I
would suggest that something like the more "scientific" version of the
German-based system for Low Saxon could be used.  If I used this system
and represented the (long vowel >) diphthong consistently by <y>, I
would write <wys> (with [...s]) for the noun and <wys'> (with [...z])
for the verb.  In this Low Saxon system, the apostrophe represented a
"dropped" /-e/ (which is not "dropped" in some dialects, hence <wyse>
there).  The absence of an apostrophe indicates that the vowel is
voiceless.

Food for thought, or simply extraneous noise interference?

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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