LL-L "Orthography" 2008.09.23 (05) [E]

Tue Sep 23 18:02:35 UTC 2008

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L O W L A N D S - L - 23 September 2008 - Volume 05
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From: Andy Eagle <andy at scots-online.org>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2008.09.21 (02) [E]

Ron Wrote:
Subject: Orthography

Thanks a lot for clarifying all that, Andy. I found this helpful in better
appreciating the problem and comparable problems in other minority languages
without fixed spelling rules.

Scots spelling may not have 'fixed rules' as such but does have widely used
conventions. To me mostly all that is necessary is to identify the
conventions and then apply them more consistently. Traditional Scots
spelling is like a slightly buckled bicycle wheel, the spokes just need
tightening, there is no need to try and reinvent the bicycle wheel.

Obviously, I was misinformed or rather assumed incorrectly on the basis of
the current orthographies floating around, that the /l/ after back vowel
does surface in inflected forms. Wherever it does not surface -- and
according to your information that's pretty much in all cases, except some
doublets -- I see no reason to write it.

If I may as an outsider, I suggest that in such instances historical /l/ be
consistently written <w>. Consistency seems advisable to me for various
reasons. Among the more important reasons are that, usually standing for a
glide ("semi-vowel"), <w> best represents the "vocalization" of /l/, <w>
would break up strings of vowel letters, and consistent correspondence of
historical /l/ and written <w> would facilitate reading from an English
angle as well, making the representation look neither particularly English
nor particularly foreign. Granted, the sequence <uw> may look odd at first.
But I put it to you that it looks no less odd than do examples like
*caain*and
*pouin*. I believe you are on the same general path, Andy, but I don't know
what you think about the consistency argument.

*all > aw [**ɑ**:]*
aw
caw, cawin, cawer, caws*, cawd
baw, baws
faw ~ fawin ~ faws
haw, haws
smaw, smawer
staw, stawin, staws, stawd
waw, wawin, waws, wawd

*oll > ow [**ʌʊ**]*
row, rowin, rows, rowd
trow, trowin, trows, trowd

*ull > uw [u:]*
buw, buws
fuw
guw, guws
puw, puwin, puws, puwd

* *caws* 'calls' versus *caw's* (< *caw us* 'call me/us')

The literary cannon certainly includes aw, caw etc. though <a'> was by far
the most frequent, <aa> occured and was probably more frequent than <aw>.
The SND under the letter A (II 1)commenting that the letter <a> "...is
joined with itself to indicate a long vowel [ɑ:]. This spelling is common in
I.Sc., n.Sc. and s.Arg. as a substitute for a and au. Ex. aa (all), aave
(scummer), faar (where), taapie (a soft, stupid, gawky person)." Under <a>
the SND also adding that the letter W (II 4) "...is joined with w to
represent (1) [ɑ:] (see II. 1) and (2) [Q] (See II. 3) generally in final
position. Ex. blaw, caw, maw, raw (row of houses, etc.)." The latter being
the solution I prefer in such cases.

Under the letter <o> the SND comments that it occurs  "with u or w to form
the diphthong [ʌu] ([ɔu] in Ork.), ... written ou or ow deriving from
various sources..." later commenting that the "ow spelling is preferred in
this dictionary to distinguish ..it from ow ... = [u] ... e.g. dow (doo) ,
drowth (drouth) fow (fou) ..." later adding that the spelling <ou> for /u/
is " gen. preferred in this dictionary..."

<uw> as you suggest above is nowhere to be found in the traditional cannon,
I think conventions should be a regularisation of those found, and
preferably fairly common, in the traditional cannon, here <ou> is readily
available and overwhelmingly applied in the SND entries for fou and pou, but
goo [gu:; gʌu (in coastal areas)] . Why fix it if it ain't broke?

For what it's worth, I rather like the idea of sticking to <ui> in words
like *muin*, *abuin* and *cuil*. It seems "phonetically evocative" enough to
me for covering the dialectical range. It would be less "evocative" and
would be in favor of the round vowel varieties if you reserved <oo> for it.
Within an "Anglic" context, it stands alone, thus does not suggest other
sounds.

Under the letter <u> the SND comments that "This spelling [ui] has become a
literary standard also in n.Sc. where the actual pronunciation is [i]." but
when final <ae> in dae, shae, tae prep., adv., adding under letter <e> that
"eu derives mainly from O.E. o, esp. before -k, -ch, e.g. beuk, eneuch,
heuk, teuch, varying in pronunciation from [ju, jʌ] to [ø] according to
dialect ... and alternating with the spelling ui to represent [ø];" so the
practice of <ui> and <eu> before /k/ and /x/ is firmly grounded in
tradition.

The use of the apostrophe for anything other than language-internal omission
(and for distinguishing genitive marking from plural marking if you must
follow this tradition) seems inadvisable to me in that it is basically
misleading and confusing. Assigning more than one purpose to one symbol is
rarely a really good idea, unless the contexts are clearly separated, and
generally understandably so.

I agree here with use of the apostrophe including for genitive and plural
marking, after all that is the tradition. Some symbols do have more than one
purpose but the intended pronunciations are generally marked by  adjacent
letters eg. <ei> in for example heid is either /i/ or /e/ depending on
dialect but before <ch> is usually always /i/.

Andy
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