Dear Jon, Modifying spellings to fit the sound is standard practice in Latvian. Your comment has prompted me to offer a little diversion for everyone, which I hope you will enjoy.
See if you can identify the twenty musicians listed below. Latvians add these noun endings: 1) -s to masculine nominative singular; 2) -a to feminine nominative singular; 3) -i to masculine nominative plural; 4) -s to feminine nominative plural. My font can't cope with all their little diacritical marks, and different computers will probably handle them differently anyway; so I've described those marks in brackets. Ten modern: Elviss Preslijs Dzimijs Hendrikss [little v over z] Pols Makartnijs Mailss Deiviss Dzeinisa Dzoplina [little v over z each time] Caks Berijs [little v over C] Bitli [little horizontal line over the last i] Stivs Vonders [little horizontal line over the i] Kaunts Beizijs Dzordzs Gersvins [little v over z each time; horizontal line over e; little v over first s] Ten old: Johans Sebastjans Bahs Henrijs Persels [horizontal line over e after P] Frederiks Sopens [little v over S; horizontal line over the last e] Zans Filips Ramo [little v over Z] Viljams Berds [horizontal line over e] Klods Debisi [horizontal line over the last i] Georgs Fridrihs Hendelis [horizontal line over the second i] Zoskens Depre [little v over Z; horizontal line over first and last e] Fransua Kuperens [horizontal line over second a and second e] Dzons Daulends [little v over z] Please may I ask that no-one provides all the answers straight away, because that would spoil it for everyone else. I'll identify the twenty musicians in a couple of days or so. Best wishes, Stjuarts Makkojs. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jon Murphy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Lute List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 6:25 AM Subject: Re: Titles (Was Re: Why was the K'berg MS stolen? (Was Re: Koenigsberg Manuscript > As to the American spelling of Habsburg, we have the tendency to modify > foreign spellings to fit the perceived sound. > > Best, Jon
