LL-L "Orthography" 2003.02.11 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: Andy (Scots-Online) <andy at scots-online.org>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2003.02.09 (06) [E/S]

John M. Tait wrote:

<snip>
> Sandy wrote to Andy:
>
> When I did suggest using an
> >> spelling system independent of English (about the beginning
> >> of last year, I think it was), you said it wasn't a good idea
> >> because it wasn't familiar, and by familiar you meant what
> >> was taught in schools, ie English.
>
> I think we have to distinguish here between what we think might be a good
> idea if all else were equal, and what has some chance of acceptance. I
> presume that when Andy says 'maximally internally consistent' he means, as
> consistent as you can achieve within the broad conventions of traditional
> spelling. The idea here is that you can achieve a much greater degree of
> practical consistency (aiding pronunciation and spelling by analogy) than
> you see in most Scots writing - or lexicography, for that matter - without
> adopting a radical solution. At least, that is what Andy's examples
> (following) seem to mean to me.

That's what I meant.

> It is true that a radical solution would be acceptable if it were taught
in
> school, but the problem is that before it can be taught in school it would
> have to be accepted _first_!

My impression is that radical solutions are highly unlikely to be adopted by
those who have the most influence in such areas, especially
because of their reluctance to accept even modest proposals to regularize
what is already there and explain the dialect pronunciations based on the
underlying phonemes as represented by the selected graphemes.

<snip>

>One argument for a radical
> spelling is that, if the spelling was totally unlike English, the tendency
> to pronounce words the English way would be lessened - for example

<snip>

> You might learn to fall into the system without even noticing. Of course,
as
> I believe I've said before, the best way to achieve this effect would be
to
> use Cyrillic script!

What about Runes (Futhark) do we not have more cultural claim to that? ;-)

> >'spune', 'muin', 'aboon', 'flair', 'mair', 'muir', 'gweed' etc. and
'look',
> >'buik', 'neuk' etc. in one piece of writing each group with the same
> >underlying phoneme, though rendered differently in different dialects.
>
> These are using more than one spelling for the same phoneme. I don't think
> this is necessarily a bad thing as such, though some of the examples Andy
> gives also use one grapheme for more than one phoneme - eg: 'flair' and
> 'mair'.

I was using 'mair' as an example of a central spelling of 'muir'.
Interestingly in A Scots map of Scotland puplished in the early 90's
Scots places currently spelled 'muir' were respelled 'mair' e.g. Lammermair,
Mairkirk, Tweedsmair, Kirriemair etc. but it had Eckfuird.

<snip>

> All of these are results of the dialect heritage - and again, such
spellings
> are defended and promoted by the SLD.

Exactly my point. If Scots is a language why is it being treated as a
dialect (of English)?
I assume because in the past - an no doubt still - this was the approach
taken by universities and their progeny
are perhaps reluctant to question the inbred orthodoxy.

<snip>

Andy Eagle

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