LL-L: "Orthography" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 08.OCT.1999 (03)

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From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
Subject: Orthography

Alfred Brothers wrote:

>As hard as it seems to believe, English used to be a fairly
phonetic language <

>Is it the ligature "oe" to which you're referring? If so, the symbol was
not common in Middle English ... it may have been used in Norman French
borrowings ...  As far as I know, though, it is called "o" "e" in French and
doesn't have a special name. <

I think there may be a bit of confusion about "oe". The original website
simply listed characters which are or have been used to write "English".
Since words in "oe" and "ae" have historically been written with ligatures
that is sufficient to earn them a place in the list. None of my French
dictionaries or reference books gives the character a name.

I don't disagree with Alfred's first statement but there was a long period
after the Norman Conquest during which writing was the prerogative of
French-trained monks, who themselves spoke different varieties of French. So
although they used phonetic spellings they were based on French phonetics!

I have read that we spell  "won" as we do, even though in the South of
England we pronounce it "wun", because written with a quill pen
(technological heritage!) "wun"  would come out something like "iiiiiii"
(without the dots, of course) and therefore be incomprehensible. I'm not
sure whether "n" would have been written with a weak upstroke between the
"legs" or with none (as in the Deutsche Handschrift). I assume that the
Northern pronunciation "won" is a spelling pronunciation, but is that true?

Anecdote: I once had a German landlady (in London). Because her grandmother
had used it she could read Deutsche Handschrift but couldn't write it. I had
learned it for fun because it was included in my school textbook, so I could
write it but couldn't read it.

John Feather
johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

----------

From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk]
Subject: "Orthography"

> From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
> Subject: Orthography
>
> I can imagine him having trouble with all sorts of minor officials and
> spelling his name for them: "D-A-L-Y-E-L-L, pronounced `Dalziel' " (!).

Actually, this is pronounced [di'El] - go figure!

In my dialect these palatialisations represented by the letter "z" are
hardly ever pronounced, hence Menzies ['minIs], Cockenzie [ko'kInI] (a town
in East Lothian), Mackenzie [m@'kInI] &c.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org

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