Cecil Ward: Fonts with buailte characters (was: Irish Lenition & Orthographic Depth)

[Elizabeth J. Pyatt]

Approved-By:  Cecil Ward <cecil at CECILWARD.COM>
Date:         Mon, 21 Apr 2003 10:18:48 +0100


I do not believe that changing a long established orthography could
in any way make it easier to learn to read. In any case, read what
material?

We can all agree that it is not the case that the choice between
postposed h's and superscript dots is more "phonetic".

And would this not in fact *reduce* the correspondence between sound
and symbol if dots were used for initial lenition, but not for
word-internal lenited consonants. And what about words that have a
permanently lenited initial? These are not "the result of a mutation"
in the mind of the native speaker. Imagine if I were to write "tall"
(Scottish Gaelic), with superscript dot on the t, for "thall"?

I presume that we would still have digraphs for nasalization, so in
that case we would a confusing mix of different strategies.

This idea seems to throw up so many problems...

Le meas,

Cecil Ward

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