LL-L "Orthography" 2003.02.09 (06) [E/S]

Sun Feb 9 21:11:36 UTC 2003

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From: John M. Tait <jmtait at wirhoose.co.uk>
Subject:  LL-L "Orthography" 2003.02.08 (02) [E/S]

I swore blind to myself that I was going to stay out of this orthography
debate this time, but I see that Ron has put one of my contributions under
this title anyhow, when I thought I was safely writing about stuffy old
phonology! That's my New Year's resolution down the sink!

Thanks, Ron!!!

Joking apart,  I can't say very much about it as I still haven't managed to
find an e-mail client which can handle Unicode (and I do _not_ intend to
start using Outlook Express, after all the hassle I've had deleting e-mail
worms from other people's computers.) Has anyone got any advice?

This in itself could be an argument against diacritics. Suppose someone with
a casual interest in Scots subscribes to this list and finds they (apologies
for the execrable English!) can't read the submissions because all the
Unicode symbols come across as two-byte ASCII hieroglyphs - won't they just
not bother? Or this might be an argument for using the ordinary ASCII
international character codes rather than Unicode except where Unicode is
absolutely necessary. But maybe the bloatware of the corporate giant does it
all automatically. (I presume everyone has heard the world's best oxymoron:
'Microsoft works.')

Sandy wrote to Andy:

When I did suggest using an
>> spelling system independent of English (about the beginning
>> of last year, I think it was), you said it wasn't a good idea
>> because it wasn't familiar, and by familiar you meant what
>> was taught in schools, ie English.

I think we have to distinguish here between what we think might be a good
idea if all else were equal, and what has some chance of acceptance. I
presume that when Andy says 'maximally internally consistent' he means, as
consistent as you can achieve within the broad conventions of traditional
spelling. The idea here is that you can achieve a much greater degree of
practical consistency (aiding pronunciation and spelling by analogy) than
you see in most Scots writing - or lexicography, for that matter - without
adopting a radical solution. At least, that is what Andy's examples
(following) seem to mean to me.

It is true that a radical solution would be acceptable if it were taught in
school, but the problem is that before it can be taught in school it would
have to be accepted _first_!

>For example what is often seen in Scots writing is 'waiter' but 'maitter'
>where because 'waiter' is shared with English it remains the same but an
<i>
>is inserted into matter to make it 'Scots'. This results in two spelling
>conventions for /et at r/. (The Glottal is a realisation o /t/) Similarly
>'hairy' - 'cairry', 'manner' - 'mainer' etc.

The principle which is being ignored here is analogy - maiter, waiter.
(These are spellings which would be equally acceptable in a radical system.)
It's worth noting that the SLD representative on the recent translation
panel insisted on the 'maitter' spelling.

>'swap', 'want' and 'wash' spellt 'swaap', 'waash' etc. but 'mak' (make)
>where I would argue <a> for /a/ is internally consistant.
>'ingle' but 'singil' etc.

Both of these are the result of flagging a difference from either an
irregular English pronunciation (wash) or one where the pronunciation is
different from English (single). How does the 'alang/along' feature in
Central Scots affect words like _wash_? (Personally, I don't have any
difficulty pronouncing <wash> as [waS] or <single> as [sINl], but I do find
it difficult to pronounce <find> as [fIn(d)].) Writers from the whole
spectrum of Scots letters - from Purves to Fitt - insist on using
inconsistent spelling to show differences in pronunciation from English,
thus breaking Andy's internal consistency rule. One argument for a radical
spelling is that, if the spelling was totally unlike English, the tendency
to pronounce words the English way would be lessened - for example>

I canna find my jaiket

Is likely to be pronounced [f at Ind], especially as this is the way many
speakers of less traditional dialects do pronounce it. However, if you were
reading a long text with spellings of the type:

A kana find ma djaikit

You might learn to fall into the system without even noticing. Of course, as
I believe I've said before, the best way to achieve this effect would be to
use Cyrillic script!

>'spune', 'muin', 'aboon', 'flair', 'mair', 'muir', 'gweed' etc. and 'look',
>'buik', 'neuk' etc. in one piece of writing each group with the same
>underlying phoneme, though rendered differently in different dialects.

These are using more than one spelling for the same phoneme. I don't think
this is necessarily a bad thing as such, though some of the examples Andy
gives also use one grapheme for more than one phoneme - eg: 'flair' and
'mair'. I don't see any reason why for example both <ie> and <ee> should not
be used for the [i] sound, as long as both graphemes are _always_ pronounced
that way. It's when one grapheme is pronounced in different ways in some
dialects (eg; speir [i] and breid [e] in some dialects, or the 'flair' and
'mair' that Andy gives above, where only 'mair' always has the [e:] sound,
and fluir - as it should be spelt - has the dialect variations
characteristic of the <ui> /2/ phoneme) that the practical problems start,
because readers are no longer able to pronounce, and thus perceive, the
result as their own language.

>'minister' but 'meenit' or 'meinit' etc.
>'buckle' but 'mukkil', 'houss' but 'about' and not 'aboutt' etc.

These are the result of combining different spelling conventions
willy-nilly. In extreme cases they can lead to gross errors, such as some
people using the traditional participial ending <an> for verbal nouns, just
because they look more 'Scots'.

>Running words together 'gonnae' for 'gaun tae' , 'kinna' for 'kin o' cf.
>English 'wanna' for 'want to', 'gonna' for 'going to' - classics of
>'dialect' writing.
>Phonological spellings instead of etymological ones 'awfie', 'offy',
'affi',
>'affa' for what is 'awe' + 'fou/fu' e.g. 'awfu'.

The principle being broken here is morphological - not recognising the
constituent parts of words, and thus creating dialect-specific forms,
whereas the morphological spelling <awfu> can equally well be pronounced
'affa' or 'awfie'.

All of these are results of the dialect heritage - and again, such spellings
are defended and promoted by the SLD.
>
(snip)
>
>> It's quite clear that these traditional diacritics act
>> as sentinels for pronunciations that are on the way
>> out because of the fact that Scots isn't taught. I think
>> it's a very good idea to supply these indications in
>> diacritic form so that they can be ignored by those who
>> don't care and yet leave the choice open for those who do.
>
>> > I can understand the need for some kind of aid for learners in order to
>> > avoid assuming because a spelling is similar or the same as in English
>the
>> > pronounciation is as well. Is this kind of aid of course not that
>> > which the
>> > Scots language experts advocate? Spelling Scots dialects based on
>> > the sound
>> > to letter correspondences of standard English. The norm with which most
>> > English speaking people are familiar.
>>
>> What do you mean by "Scots language experts"? I haven't a
>> clue what you're talking about  :|

An efter ye tellin Andy ti leave this kynd o thing ti fowk caa'd Austen...!

It would seem to me to be a good idea to first internally maximise the
spelling as Andy suggests, then add diacritic aids to flag pronunciations
which conflict with the English. The diacritics would then fulfill a purely
learning purpose, and would not be an intrinsic part of the system.

(As for the existence o Scots Language Experts - is oniebodie _no_ a Scots
Language Expert?)

>> > How about simply using a kind of colour code for learner texts. Where
>the
>>
>> I'm not talking about learner texts (though I may have given
>> the wrong impression with my two bullet points) - the fact
>> that the diacritics would be useful to learners is incidental
>> to the fact that modern Scots speakers who would like to speak
>> the best possible Scots need pointers due to the lack of their
>> education in Scots.

ditto, whit I sayed afore.

Dan wrote:

>The idea of a pan-dialectal standard All-Scots (including Ullans)
>appeals to me. It is my impression that the Scots language is in a state
>in which it would require serious language planning to achieve
>respectability as a public medium beyond folkloristic contexts. Not
>linguistically, but sociolingustically it is reduced to a
>"dialect"-function (what is generally regarded as the 2dialect2 context,
>not what most of us Lowlanders consider to be dialect). English is its
>standard "roof" while Scots has fragmented. People lose touch and a feel
>for the languages as it is spoken in other areas of the country. This is
>a common phenomenon in a group of dialects that lack a standard, i.e.
>Breton, only the dialect of the native parish is considered correct, all
>other varieties are wrong, incorrect and bad Breton. From similar
>discussion here I get the impression that Scots dialect boundaries seem
>difficult to overcome, not in speech, but in writing. So how can a
>planned standard language be constructed? Would it help to raise the
>profile and prestige of the dialects? I think it could, if variety and
>dialect speech is somthing that is always promoted while giving the new
>standard its own place next to or opposite the old standard (i.e.
>Scottish English). What are the options for creating this "new" Scots
>orthography?

There would be many options for creating such an orthography. The problem is
that the influential figures in the Scots Language Movement are opposed to
this, preferring to use off-the-cuff spellings (cf. Andy's comment about
'maitter' above) and representations of different dialects.
>
>It might be helpful to look at two Scandinavian languages with strong
>dialectal divesity, which used Danish as a standard language in the
>past: New-Norwegian and Faroese; (Icelandic is different here as it
>shows next to no dialectal variation). Orthographies were created quite
>recently for these languages. For me a pan-dialectal etymological
>approach would be desirable, however taking into account exsting Scots
>literature and building something a little more consistent. First of all
>a common phonemic base for Scots has to be established. From then on we
>can pick out the most common spellings in the texts and in use, and
>assign these to the phonemes. A word like "good" would be spelt <guid>
>ragardless of dialect, as dialect speakers know how to pronounce it
>anyway. A word like "took" would have the spelling <tuik> as the both go
>back to an Old Anglian form /o:/; I`m no expert in Scots, but I`m sure
>the mechanisms applied in other languages such as New-Norwegian and
>Faroese can be applied by finding a compromise between etymological,
>phonemic and historical forms. It would thus not debase a new Scots
>orthography from the Scots texts written to date, but would function as
>a standard for all Scots dialects nonetheless.

Again, even modest moves in this direction meet with opposition from the
most influential bodies, such as the SLD (and from Sandy - if I've
understood you both - because he believes in immodest moves!)

In fact, you don't have to rely on speakers knowing already how to pronounce
individual words. For example, there is a fairly general rule that <ui>,
correctly allocated, has certain pronunciations in certain dialect areas.
Therefore if the spelling is used only for words which have those
predictable variations, then the pronunciation of any word written with <ui>
is predictable within a given dialect area. It is only when the spelling is
used for words which do not have this variation that the system breaks down.
Thus _wid_ (wood) _fit_ (foot) and all occurrences before [k] and [x] -
beuk, eneuch, teuk, etc - do not conform to this pattern, and are better
spelled as I have here.
>
>There is also the possibility of departing from historical Scots
>radically and creating something new altogether. This may however not be
>accepted by the majority; or maybe it would, who knows, if the goal is
>to be as far away from letÂ´s say, English, then it might work. Now what
>I`m giving here as examples is just messing about. I`m not competent in
>Scots to make any proposals which can be taken seriously, but itÂ´s just
>to demonstrate practically what I`m getting at in general. So dear Scots
>speakers, forgive my general ignorance and bear with me a little, may
>the competent speakers will be inspired to extrapolate on one of my
>proposals:
>
>"Sae fill up yer glasses, let the bottle gae roon
>fur the sun has come up, tho the mune hae gane doon
>an if the room be rinnin roon anoot, there`s time aneuch tae flit
>fur when we fell, we aye got up again, an sae will we yet!"

I'll just write this in my spelling for the sake of illustration:

Sae fill up yer glesses, lat the bottle gae roond
for the sun haes come up, tho the muin haes gaen doun
an if the room be rinnin roond aboot, thare's time eneuch ti flit
for whan we fell, we aye got up again, an sae will we yit.
>
<glesses, fill, bottle, rinnin, fell, will> all demonstrate conventional
English consonant spellings - a radical system would have perhaps <glesis,
fil, botil, rinin, fel, wil>.

<glesses>, <lat> and <yit> are more traditional Scots pronunciations of
these words - note the rhyme 'flit' 'yit'

<roond> maintains the <d> which is still pronounced in some dialects. The
<oo> is used deliberately to distinguish from the English pronunciation, and
is inconsistent with <doun>. However, I'm not worried about two spellings
being used for the same sound - because of the practical compromise it
offers - as long as these spellings are always pronounced that way.

<haes> (usually pronounced [hIz]) is a morphological spelling - _hae_ + _s_.

<come> is a completely illogical spelling borrowed from English.

<muin> has the <ui> spelling because the word has the expected regional
variants of that phoneme. <eneuch> has a different spelling, to indicate the
different pronunciations of the same original phoneme before [k] and [x].

<aye> is an illogical traditional spelling - the sound is normally spelt
<ey>.

<we> is an illogical traditional spelling (the sort that I would justify as
'morphological' - ie, a frequent word spelt as a whole morpheme.)

<ti> is a spelling used mostly by some Scots enthusiasts to distinguish from
<tae> meaning 'too'. Both are illogical - the phonological spellings would
be <tae> to and <tui> too.

I can't read the Unicode and my arms are getting sore, so I'll leave the
rest!

John M. Tait.

http://www.wirhoose.co.uk

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Orthography

John Magnus:

> I swore blind to myself that I was going to stay out of this orthography
debate this time, but I see
> that Ron has put one of my contributions under this title anyhow, when I
thought I was safely
> writing about stuffy old phonology! That's my New Year's resolution down
the sink!
>
> Thanks, Ron!!!

Onietime, John Magnus!

It's no *ma* blame that ye cannae gainstand provokshin.  Gin ye dinna want
tae tango, ye maunnae hark tae the baund!  :)

Regairds,
Reinhard/Ron

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