LL-L "Orthography" 2002.03.10 (03) [E/S]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 10.MAR.2002 (03) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Orthography"

> From: "John M. Tait" <jmtait at wirhoose.co.uk>
> Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2002.03.06 (01) [E/S]
>
> Sandy wrote:
>
> Guidsakes! Tak yer een aff Sandy for a twa-three days an see whit he
> gits
> up til! Whit wis ye daein thon hale year I wis awa, Sandy...?

A'v been daein plenty but A see you'v no chainged!

> I think this is partly true - that if it were possible to concentrate on
> Scots as Scots, and ignore English spelling, it would be more effective.
> The problem, as we all know, is that those who are in positions of
> influence are operating in a philosophical arena where - however much
> they
> may use the phrase 'Scots Language' - Scots is studied under the
> umbrella
> of English. There seems little point in pursuing a radical approach when
> much less radical proposals are not only rejected, but derided, by
> literary
> and academic figures with their own vestment interests for retaining
> Scots
> within the niche which they have provided for it.

Could you complete the argument? Why is there little point
in pursuing something because literary and academic figures
reject it?

> _Per se_, the type of orthographic approach Sandy is using reminds me of
> the one Sir James Murray used in his Biblical translations, the purpose
> of
> which was to put over the pronunciation of his own border dialect.
> Samples
> are available in the (now also out of print) _History of the Scots
> Bible_,
> by Graham Tulloch.

It's not the same. Murray was a professional lexicographer for
the English language who believed that no Scots writing was of
value unless it provided a precise snapshot of the spoken language
at a specific place and time. My approach is that there doesn't have
to be an exact representation - it just has to be teachable and as
consistent as it can be made (not entirely consistent - dialect
variation makes that impossible).


> A few comments (apologies if my cursory glance has missed some of the
> adaptations from the original proposal):
>
> 1. The original proposal seems to have some confusion of phonetics,
> phonology and morphology. The omission of the /O/ phoneme, for example,
> is
> another of those features which tend to standardise in favour of Central
> dialects. If /O/ is a phoneme in some dialects, I don't see how it can

I did mention that - I was really hoping for solutions from
those better-versed than myself, not problems!


> be derived from. On the other hand, is it necessary to distinguish
> between
> final plural [s] and [z], when they both express the plural morpheme?
> Similarly, the short and long pronunciations of the phoneme in _time_,
> _byre_ is usually determined by the SVLR, and where it isn't is subject
> to
> dialect variation. Both of these considerations suggest that it is best
> to
> use one grapheme for it, because native speakers will know how it is

You say "similarly" but in fact these two points contradict
each other. If you don't distinguish the plural /s/ and /z/,
then the SVLR isn't a reliable guide any more. It's not a
completely reliable guide anyway, of course!

> pronounced in their own dialect, whereas a distinction is redundant
> where
> it is determined, and intrusive where there is dialect variation. Surely
> if
> we'r talking about diaphonology, we first need to implement a
> phonological
> rather than phonetic approach. At any rate, it should be clear which
> elements are phonetic, which phonological, which diaphonological, and
> which
> morphological, and which of these principles is used where.

I don't agree that all those aspects of linguistics need to be
given weight in an orthography. The important thing is having
a representation of each of the phonemes in the language and
applying them consistently enough for people to be able to see
the sense in them.


> As regards plurals, I would suggest that there's a back-influence from
> English orthography. Because English uses <s> for /z/ (the phoneme)
> sometimes, as well as <s> for [z] where the difference isn't
> phonological,
> we may have a tendency to change _all_ <s>s to <z>s even where they both
> represent the same morpheme, rather than just where the /z/ is a
> phoneme.

I think you're being far too pessimistic about people's,
especially children's, linguistic abilities. Besides, you
said "may" - you haven't put it into practice, so unless
you can find some examples, there seems no reason to cite
this as a problem.

> You could argue, I suppose, that there's no reason why the plural
> morpheme
> shouldn't be written phonetically, but I would suggest that this would
> create problems, ultimately involving rules for writing it (a bit like
> we
> have to do with the preterite morpheme <-it>, <t>, <ed> because the
> influence of English means that we can't trust people to pronounce a
> single
> spelling the Scots way.)

The preterite morpheme isn't the same sort of thing as the
plural - it varies between dialects, whereas the plural
morpheme is consistent. Again, perhaps you underestimate
people. Why can't you "trust" them? Who are "people"? Scots
speakers? Foreign-language learners? English-speaking actors
working with Scots scripts?

> 2. The representation of Shewa and Aitken's Vowel is a problem. I find
> the
> use of <u> as initial Shewa very odd - my pronunciation in this case
> doesn't sound like [V]. This is bound to be a problem in any orthography
> where the graphemes have exact values. There isn't the scope for the
> sort
> of dialect variation which isn't regular. How do you decide when to use
> <u>
> and when <i> for an unstressed vowel?

You can't phonemically - it's a feature of both Scots and
English that unstressed syllables tend to be reduced. English
takes an etymological solution, but this is something that has
to be learned on a word-by-word basis. As I explained originally,
this is reflected in the large number of "i"s you find used in
unstressed syllables in this orthography I'm suggesting.

However, using "i"s copiously for reduced syllables has an
advantage - it makes it possible for a person to read an
unfamiliar word and if there's only one non-"i" syllable
they can normally assume the non-"i" to be the stressed
syllable. So although it may not be possible to show all
variant pronunciations of such syllables, the advantages
can be greater than the disadvantages.

This is something you need to bear in mind - it's easy enough
to tear things apart, but the disadvantages you see in what
you're ripping into may be nothing compared with the
disadvantages of what you're used to!

> And what about variation in stressed vowels - for example, I say
> ["antr at n],
> but in the NE it's - to my ears - ["Vntr at n]. The well-known tendency of
> some Central dialects to pronounce classic Scots <i> as [V], and of NE
> ones
> to pronounce classic Scots <a> as [V], raises questions about exact
> representation, in an approach which doesn't take account of the
> probability that the historical spelling represents an original
> pronunciation which has then become merged with other phonemes in
> certain
> dialects, but not in others.

Well, variation exists, and things like that will have to be
ironed out. I mean, are we afraid to step outside in case of
what might happen? And again, what I'm suggesting is still
better than what we have now - it's still going to be a lot
more teachable and learnable than the current schizographic(TM :)
state of affairs.

> This brings out another problem. This type of orthography enables Scots

Have you considered a solution?

> A similar question arises with the spelling of the [W] sound. In a
> from-scratch orthography, it would be silly to use <wh> for this, when
> some
> other diaphonological spelling (q, qh, quh, fh) could be used to
> accommodate both the usual [W] and the Northern [f] pronunciation, and
> sever the mental connection of <wh> with the SSE pronunciation for
> Northern readers.

You talk about this as if it was yet another problem with the spelling
I'm suggesting. In fact I've allocated <q> for /W/.

> 3. The real problems arise with the attempt to process the original
> orthography into a more traditional form. The best illustration is
> 'dangerous' - a Romance (Old French) word borrowed with its French
> spelling. The automatic 'traditionalising' process works well with
> Anglo-Scots words, but, whereas the phoneticological (!?) spellings of
> words like 'dainjiris' look all right in the context of other 'weird'
> spellings, they stand out like a sore thumb when in the company of other
> words which look 'normal'. This is why, in my opinion, any orthography
> which sets out to have a traditional appearance must use etymological
> and
> morphological spellings as well as phonological and diaphonological
> ones.

Now wait a minute - you're making an argument for a maximally
complex orthographic system purely on the basis that some
spellings look "weird" or "stand out like a sore thumb" to
you. This is completely subjective - what looks weird to you
will look normal to someone who's used to it. How about
restricting considerations mainly to phonemics on the basis
that "weirdness" doesn't matter?

> As regards the acceptability of any such approach, the first question
> which
> must be addressed is the unacceptability of _any_ orthography, other
> than
> the _ad hoc_, to those who largely represent Scots in Edinburgh.

So I'll address the question thusly - aren't the Edinburgh
academics just a scapegoat for the fact that you're not able
to provide any solutions either?

Gin A seem a bit greetin-face, John - juist think o me bein
tae you what you ar tae thae Edinburgh folk!  :)

Sandy
http://scotstext.org
A dinna dout him, for he says that he
On nae accoont wad ever tell a lee.
                          - C.W.Wade,
                    'The Adventures o McNab'

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