LL-L "Orthography" 2003.02.04 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

======================================================================
 L O W L A N D S - L * 04.FEB.2003 (03) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
 http://www.lowlands-l.net * admin at lowlands-l.net * Encoding: Unicode UTF-8
 Rules & Guidelines: http://www.lowlands-l.net/rules.htm
 Posting Address: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org
 Server Manual: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html
 Archive: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html
=======================================================================
 You have received this because you have been subscribed upon request.
 To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l" as message
 text from the same account to <listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org> or
 sign off at <http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html>.
=======================================================================
 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
 L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
 S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
=======================================================================

From: Andy (Scots-Online) <andy at scots-online.org>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2003.02.01 (02) [E]

Sandy Fleming wrote:
> Subject: "Orthography"

> There has been a development (perhaps alarming, perhaps not nearly as
> important as some people think) in the field of Scots orthography lately,
> namely, the Scottish dictionary people have been insisting on being the
> authority on spelling. So far there have been no spelling guidelines that
I
> can see, beyond a few hints that it'll be based on Central dialects and
> pretty much like what you see in Scottish comics like 'The Broons'.

I have the same impression from what I've seen so far. But then again what
is wrong with using such an approach? We all know that certain naive circles
often speak of the 'Scots Language' but we know what is really meant is the
Scotch dialects of English. Such an approach only recognises and accepts the
established linguistic hierarchy. English is the norm and the Scotch
dialects of English are a deviation from it. Central Scotch dialects being
the most widely used in Scotland are thus the 'defacto' dialect standard.
The written form will of course be sensibly based on the sound to letter
correspondences of standard English in order to avoid falling victim to the
ridiculous notion that the Scotch dialects of English could somehow be
treated as an independent linguistic system. Scotch can't be independent
because English is the norm. Other Scotch dialects of English will hopefully
sensibly follow the lead set by the Central Scotch dialects of English and
follow the sound to letter correspondences of standard English. The worst
thing would be if some fool enthusiast started waffling on about underlying
phonemes and polyphonemic graphemes. We English speaking people experts know
well fine that your average Scotch will never be able to deal with such a
concept. They need the guidance of a proper language with proper sound to
letter correspondences like English- with which, we are of course, all
extremly familiar.

> Anyway, this would suggest that traditional spelling systems, however
> ill-advised, still hold sway. Meanwhile, I'm still faced with the problem
of
> how to represent Scots on ScotseXt and other places in such a way that a
> reader can get guidance on how to pronounce Scots while still using a
> traditional spelling system (whether it's a truly traditional one or the
one
> being promoted by Scottish Dictionaries probably doesn't matter: they're
> both going to be bad!).

A lot of the spelling conventions used by SLD aren't bad. What is
unfortunate is the inconsitant a way in which they are applied, often
ignoring the concept of underlying phonemes and polymphonemic graphemes to
represent these as they are pronounced in various dialects. Apparrently
because such an orthography would have to be sytematically taught an learnt
is an obsticle. The result is that in order to be literate in Scots one must
be literate in English first. This of course results from the belief that
English is the norm and before one can orthographically represent deviations
from it one must be well acquainted with the norm.
Do any other languages presupose literacy in English a prerequisit for
literacy in the native language? Surely orthographies are developed for the
benifit of native speakers? Would foreign languages be easier to learn, from
an English speaking perspective, if they used an orthography based on the
sound to letter correspondences of Standard English? What about phonemes
that don't occur in standard English?

> I've explored various options, from designing an orthography from scratch
> (this will fail because almost nobody at the present time would consider
> reading it) to designing a sophisticated internal representation of the
> sounds of the language which can then be processed by software to produce
> the reader's desired orthography (I've found this doesn't work because
> taking something in "The Doric", say, and transliterating it into some
> Central dialect, say, results in an unnatural-looking form of Scots: the
> machine would also have to alter grammar and idiom for the results to be
> acceptable).
>
> In the end it seems clear to me that what's needed is some kind of
> diacritical markup system that's fairly independent of the actual
> orthography. Thus it (hopefully) won't matter too much if the underlying
> orthography (the actual letters used) has to be upgraded within
traditional
> parameters: the diactritics will still give the same sort of indications.
>
> Independent (or optional, or supporting) diacritics would be useful to two
> audiences:
>
>     o    learners, who need to see stress patterns and pronunciations that
> contrast with the standard English pronunciations that they're used to
even
> although the spelling looks the same as in English;
>
>     o    native speakers who are unconsciously abandoning the
pronunciation
> of their parents for more English pronunciations as taught in school:
> although the native speaker has a choice here, the visibility of the
> alternatives offered through diacritics would help them to make an
informed
> choice.
>
> Such a diacritic system could be made very simple: one or two diacritics
> would be sufficient. I've explored this sort of option, but ultimately
> decided on looking at established systems, which I found result in a
larger
> number of diacritics, but as well as having the advantage of being
familiar
> to readers who are familiar with certain important works in Scots, the
> variety of a slightly more complicated system is aesthetically quite
> pleasing, so probably the extra diacritics will bother no one other than
the
> most hardened minimalists.
>
> Now on to describing the diacritics themselves.
>
> Diacritics for Diaphonemes
> =================
>
> Robert Louis Stevenson and others used 'ü' to represent the diaphoneme in
> such word as 'guid', which they wrote 'güde'. Similary P.Hay Hunter
(author
> who wrote the novel 'James Inwick' entirely in Scots) used this diacritic
to
> distinguish a Scots diaphoneme in an English-like spelling, eg 'peäce'.
>
> I messed around with the idea of using this diacritic to represent
> diaphonemes for a long time, but eventually I decided nothing would be
> gained. For one thing, the whole system of Scots diaphonemes can be (and
> sometimes is) represented in Scots by use of digraphs, in which case the
> diacritic is redundant. For another, few people find diaphonemes easy to
> understand, so there's a danger of just confusing many readers. So
although
> for an enthusiast this sort of diacritic has its attractions, I decided
not
> to use it.

> Diacritics for Stress
> ============
>
> Often the stress in a Scots word is traditionally different from what
> learners or some modern speakers expect. For example, 'matress', 'convict'
> (noun), 'forby' and 'joco' all have the stress on the final syllable.
> William Laughton Lorimer (who translated the New Testament from the Greek
> into Scots) used a grave accent to show these stress patterns:
>
>  ,  , ì, ò, ỳ giving, for example, aw , matr ss, convìct, ablò, forbỳ
/ə'w/,
> /mə'trɛ:s/, /kən'vɪkt/, /ə'blo:/, /fər'ba:i/.

I'm not seeing some of these symbols correctly in Outlook Express with
UTF-8. I don't know why.

> Lorimer doesn't give a case of a grave accent for the letter 'u', but
there
> is such a word as 'illustrate', which has the stress on the 'u' when it's
a
> noun. However, I think this can be combined with another diacritic which
> I'll describe later.
>
> Diacritics for Vowel Sound
> ================
>
> Sometimes a vowel in Scots isn't pronounced as in the English even though
> there is no traditional distinction made between them in spelling. In
> particular, Scots pronunciations of words borrowed from Latin are often
> closer to the Latin pronunciation. The pronunciation of Greek affixes may
> also be similar by analogy. For example, in 'nation', 'generation',
> 'salvation', 'minister', 'hypocrite' the 'a's are pronounced /a:/ or /ɒ:/
> and the stressed 'i's and 'y's pronounced /i/.
>
> Lorimer distinguished these by writing <â>, <í> and <ý>. We could probably
> simplify the system by using < > in place of < >, but at least for the
> moment, I'll stick with Lorimer. On the one hand, it has the advantage of
> familiarity for those who have read Lorimer, and on the other, it may be
> that he knew something I don't! Note that Lorimer actually used a special
> 'a' for this character: his son, who completed the editing work on the
> translation after his father's death, changed it to the diacritic form.
>
> This exhausts Lorimer's provision in the way of diacritics, but something
I
> often find a nuisance in writing Scots is the lack of traditional
spellings
> to distinguish the /ʌ/ sound in Scots 'bull', 'pull', 'lodge', 'logic'
from
> the English pronunciations of these words. In the case of the letter 'u',
P.
> Hay Hunter provides a diacritic for this, writing, for example, 'pŭll'. So
> we could also write 'bŭll' /bʌl/, 'bŭlly', 'bŭllet', and I think we could
> also just use this in the noun 'illŭstrate' rather than needing a u-grave
to
> show the stress.
>
> Hunter doesn't use this diacritic with 'o' but I think it would be useful
to
> do this so that we can write 'lŏdge', 'lŏdger', 'lŏgic', 'cŏnstable'
> /'kʌnstəbl/ and suchlike.
>
> As I said before, this system could be simplified to use only two
> diacritics, but I don't see any big advantages in this, and I think the
> system as derived from older writers works well, particularly for
readers -
> this is what matters as I'm not suggesting that anyone who is happy with
> diacritic-free spellings need to use this, and it should be possible for
me,
> in a computer context to allow the reader the option to automatically
> remove/restore all diactritics in a text.
>
> Opinions? Suggestions?
>
> One thing I'm still thinking about is the way Lorimer seems to use a
certain
> amount of overkill. He writes, for example:
>
> gíe - isn't 'gie' clear enough, or did Lorimer actually encounter someone
> pronouncing this word wrongly?

I've seen <gie> used for <gey>. Which makes sense since it's a sound to
letter correspondence from Standard English pie (the thing you eat) or die.
The spelling gie probable came about as a result of dropping the apostrophe
in gi'e. Tho <ei> is well known from heid tho I argue this represents /i/
and /e/ depending on word and dialect not juist /i/.

> líe, díe - I'd rather write 'lee', 'dee', so that the text isn't anglified
> on removing diacritics.
Unfortunately no letters to replace with apostrophies so the spelling <dee>
probably arose. Which makes sense since it's a sound to letter
correspondence from Standard English see.
> píty - this one's harder: are there traditional Scots dialects where
people
> say 'pity', or would it be better just to write 'peety' so that removing
the
> diacritics doesn't spoil the text?
> Without this sort of overkill, the diacritics would be quite sparse except
> in Scots written with a large number of Latinate words. A sample (D Gibb
> Mitchell's version of the Lord's Prayer):
>
> Faither o us aa, bydin Abuin,--
> Thy name be holy.
> Lat Thy reign begin!
> Lat Thy will be duin,
> Baith in Yirth an Heeven!
> Gie us ilka day oor needfu fendin.
> An forgie us aa oor íll deeds, as we e'en forgie them that did us íll;
> An lat us no be siftit, but save us frae the Íll Ane!
> For the croun is Thine ain,
> An the micht an the glory,
> For ever an ever. AMEN.
>
> Quite sparse! This isn't surprising, since the main purpose is to
highlight
> the differences between Scots and English pronunciations where the
spelling
> fails to do this - it's not integrated with the spellings.

I assume the í represents something like 'ull'. But do some people not
pronounce it 'ill' as well in some Scots dialects?
What about 'ever' as 'iver' ['Iv at r, 'iv at r, 'E"v at r]
The diacritics may well simply be a representation of a pronounciation a
particular dialect.
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.

How about simply using a kind of colour code for learner texts. Where the
'traditional' orthography' may not be a clear guide to the intended
pronunciation or stress pattern. Describe the basic sound to grapheme map of
the system. Describe exceptions using a different colour. eg. uiss, uise,
ruise v. the <se> in uise and ruise could be red in order to show it is
rendered /z/ and not /s/. The <u> 'pull', 'bull', 'bully', 'bullet' could be
treated similarly but I don't see why since the general description of 'the
orthography' would map <u> to /V/ except when unstressed where it would be
/@/ - or occaisionally /u/ - these would be more likely candidates for
marking especially since we don't have a grapheme for /@/ (inventing one
isn't an option;-) . If people pronounce pull, bull etc. the English way its
because they didn't RTFM. No amount of graphemes or colour coding will
hinder that because such things will be in the 'manual'.
With a colour system the orthography remains the same so with time learners
will learn to map the pronunciations of whole words where they deviate from
the basic sound map i.e. they will learn the exceptions off by heart.

Andy Eagle

==================================END===================================
* Please submit postings to <lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>.
* Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.
* Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
* Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l") are
  to be sent to <listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org> or at
  <http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html>.
 =======================================================================