From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Philippe Verdy scripsit: > > > OK. Then don't say it's Breton: It may occur in any Latin language, either > > as a typo, or within specific technical usages such as variable names in a C > > or Java program where a space cannot be used to separate words; here also > > it's not the normal orthograph part of the language, but a notation to allow > > more descriptive identifiers. > > In Irish, however, initial digraphs like "tS" and "hO" and "gC" *are* a standard > part of the orthography, and constitute the normal capitalization convention: > words beginning thus are capitalized on the second letter, not the first.
Interesting. I did not know that of Irish... And amazing. Is this convention still respected by modern writers? I would have liked to see Michael exhibit this fact about Irish, a language that he certainly better knows in his area of life. It's a shame that Michael translated and commented a French book about The Breton Grammar, and did not see that the "gW" occurence that he found in some other Breton books may simply be a typo for the normal "Gw" capitalization rule. The Breton orthograph "seems" complex with its initial and final consonnant mutations, but it better reflects the effective phonology and more simply than the complex orthograph used in English and French whose orthograph are very far from their actual pronunciation (probably with more variation in English). It's a quite near from other languages which also use prefix and suffix mutations, notably in African languages which also seem to better and more consistently respect their phonology in their written form, even if there are exceptions... Could it be simply a basic property of spoken languages where ellision, mutation, and contraction of phonemic letters is natural in humane communication?
