Talk:English

This topic IMO really deserves some further discussion. With regard to Padraic's proposals:

I stand by 3a and 3j- I think a silent h really works well, and I think the complementary distribution thing sounds good. 3k is an excellent idea. 3p I think sould définately be introduced!

I'm not sure about the Edinbugh axis, however. I was under the impression that Scots *there* is as it is *here*, linguistically speaking. With regard to 3c and 3b, I would point out that -s is definitely a northernism- I'd expect it in York but not London- i look, tha lookes, he looketh sound more likely to me. A universal ending in weak verbs of -es makes no sense to me at all, I'm afraid- AFAIK it's not known at all *here*. Deiniol 16:09, 3 Oct 2005 (PDT)

Well, exactly ... Scots is really nothing more than the northernmost "end-post" of a dialect continuum that starts down in Kent and Devon. What I mean is that it is one of the three centers of the "standard dialects".

Me, I'ld really rather steer away from personal ending distinctions, especially the survival of the distinct 2s & 3s. The whole history of flexions in English has been towards regularity and conformity. I realise that -s is a northernism, but -s is also quintessential Standard World English anymore. I hazard the guess that, in the Southron, at the time the endings were failing / collapsing, they were influenced by the northern form. Perhaps during the "After the accession of James V, the focal point of English writing and literature was Doric. This dialect was used for all literature and laws, effectively killing off English as a language of culture. The language of the pulpit and formal dealings was a highly Scotticised English, while the common people continued to use their natural vernaculars." period?

Even if the -es / -en distinction isn't too good, a general -es (-s, really) in all persons and numbers is actually common enough (leastways, here in Leftpondia). [PB]

---

Original Discussion of Proposals:

There are a couple proposals for the English language in IB which were discussed and never resolved. They don't appear to be very far apart (mostly a couple small matters of grammar).

Let's see if this can't be worked out!

---

Dan's Proposal (from Message #20437):

Joe had previously written: "It is, inciedentally, a very high literary register, which had now fallen into disuse. The man is evidently a Northerner, evidenced by the total lack of thorns in his speech. This means that he uses 'y' and 'd' for 'th', depending on the position in the word. If medial, it's 'd', if initial or final, 'y'. As yet another result, he doesn't use 'y' in places we would, hence 'familie'. He also totally avoids the use of 'k', preferring instead 'que', in an affected pseudo-French manner. At the time, it was considered non-aesthetically pleasing to have two adjectives in a row, in high-register writing. As such, one adjective is normally placed after the noun. In which case, by analogy with French, it inflects for number - hence - 'ye ancient tongues Romaniques'(the Old Romance languages). So, what do you think?"

Dan's reply:

Well, by analogy with *here*'s English, I would say that the 19th century is a bit late to still be using <y> or <d> for [T], the first dropped out during the 17th century, the second in the early fifteenth. IMO, since Johnson, Swift et al. existed *there* as well, as did Caxton, I would say that English spelling probably *had* been standardised *there* by the 19th Century- to me your text seems more similar to late 17th Century English *here*.

Drawing on Padraic's "Archaick" texts and what we already know of English *there* (e.g. retention of singular and plural in the second person pronouns) as well as the earlier history of Standard English *here*, here's a quick proposal.

1. Basis

1a. *Here's* Standard English was based on the London and East Midlands dialects. I propose keeping the same *there* (while other dialects would still be more evident *there*- not just confined to what we now call "accents").

2. Spelling Conventions

2a. Final [k] is regularly spelled <ck>, aside from more recent French loans in <-ique>. E.g. musick, apologetick.

2b. Final [S@n] from Latin/Romance <tion/cion> is regularised to <cion> (the opposite direction to *here*). E.g. emocion, nocion, evolucion.

2c. Likewise, <-ize> remains so, not <-ise>

2d. Under influence from Brithenig, <gh> was spelled <ch> in many cases. In modern useage some words still retain this spelling, e.g. nicht, knicht, *but* nigh, sigh (not nich, sich).

2e. [EI], spelled <ai> is changed to <ey>, e.g. eytch "aitch".

2f. [sk] is spelled as either <sk> or <sc>, not <sch>, which is used for some words beginning in [S].

2g. Latinizing spellings were not as popular, thus: "iland", "doute", "scoole", "viteyle", "autour". Thus the pronuntiacion of some words is affected: "teatre", "anteme", not the pretencious "theatre" or "anthem".

2h. On the other hand, words borrowed directly from Latin or Greek tended to retain their diphthongs: "encyclopaedia", "oestrogen", "praefect".

2i. <-er> is <-re>, apart from in the comparative of adjectives.

3. Grammar

3a. The neuter "it, it, its" is still "hit, him, his".

3b. The northern <-s> never became the standard 3rd person ending, instead <-eth> was retained. (maybe??)

3c. The second person singular ending <st> became <s>.

3d. <-s> is the posessive ending (invariable for number), not <-'s> or <-s'>.

3e. More irregular plurals were retained in the Standard, e.g. shoon "shoes", eyren "eggs".

3f. Reflexive "me" is still more common than "myself", e.g. "I have gotten me a new etymologickal dictionary".

3g. "gotten" is still the past participle of "get".

3h. Fronting is still the most common form of questioning: "knows thou my name?", "does thou...." is seen as more marked.

3i. Likewise "I know not" is more common than "I don't know".

3j. "my/mine" and "thy/thine" are still found in complementary distribution before consonants and vowels: "my shoon" *but* "mine oxen".

4. Vocabulary

4a. I propose throwing out all Irish, Gaelic or Welsh words (except those directly related to culture, e.g. ceilidh) and replacing them with Brithenig, Kerno, (Breathanach) and Scots equivalents. Thus, the words to be replaced:

menhir, corgi, coracle, metheglin, galore, trews, brogue, pillion, bog, cairn, gull, glen, bard, crag, craggy, dolmen.

So, what think ye? Comments, rejections, modifications, hysteria?

---

Padraic's Proposal (reshuffled to conform to Dan's most excellent format). NB: this isn't intended to be in any way "archaic" at all. I'm also going to comment on Dan's proposed items:

1. Basis

1a. The basis of *here*'s English is the London dialect. *There*, there exists a three-point axis: London, Yorich and Edinbro. This would represent both Modern English and Modern Scots with a middle-ground as well. Obviously, London would have considerable prestige, but the other standards might have taken on roles of literature or science (remember, it's the Scots that invented all the cool things the Enlgish put to use in building their Empire!).

2. Spelling Conventions

I am amenable to Dan's 2a, b, c, d, e, f and g. 2h and 2i reflect *here*'s usage already to some extent.

2j. [T] is realised differently among the standards. Th/th in Edinbro; TH/y in Yorich; TH/þ/th in London for the letter/sound thorn and edh. Like *here*, there is no spelling distinction between [T] and [D].

2k. [hw] is realised as Quh/quh in Edinbro and WH/wh in Yorich and London.

3. Grammar

3a. I think 3a is going a little far. I could be convinced, but it just looks a little tóo M.E.!

3b, c. This proposal has -es for a general non-past ending on all persons in all numbers in all weak verbs. -en is the plural ending for strong verbs. There is a zero ending for preterite-presents (will, nill, shall, ought, etc.)

3d, e. I am amenable to 3d. 3e is OK, but such as shoon might be marked as dialect forms. Perhaps in stead of "eyren", the -r plural could survive (at least in dialect) with "eyer", "childer".

3f, g. I am amenable to these, noting however that here in Leftpondia, "gotten" is already the ppl. of "get".

3h, i, j. These sound vèry stilted. I might suggest they are found in higher registers of the written language (good literature, etc.)

3k. There is an orthographic differentiation between -ng (gerund) and -nd (participle). Both are almost certainly realised as [n] in speech, like *here*.

3l. There is a tha/ye distinction in the second person personal pronoun.

3m. There was until very recently (perhaps 19th century) distinction of i (unaccented) / ich (accented). It is still found in dialect and the Bible; but has disappeared / is disappearing in standard dialect.

3n. A reduced form of them, "em" (<hem) exists. I.e., without a 'postrophe.

3o. Plurals of weak nouns end in -es or -s and is generally pronounced /Es/.

3p. I would not at all mind seeing a borrowing of accent marks from Dutch usage for emphasis -- but this one is certainly a stretch!

4. Vocabulary

4a. I am fully amenable to this proposal, with the exception that I don't see any need to throw out Scottish Gaelic words. Re: menhir, corgi, coracle, metheglin, galore, trews, brogue, pillion, bog, cairn, gull, glen, bard, crag, craggy, dolmen.

For what it's worth, Kerno has maynsers, drewqy, korracks, methyckllens, co lewoer, treves / breics, calleys, pileyàn, mareiss / bucks, caràn, goueyledns, glans (bank, shore), bards, crags, craggow, tauwalmagans. I'm sure Brithenig can easily match the list, though they might have more of a Latin slant.

I thought I'd add that it might be a little more difficult to root all the Gaelic words out of IB English than that considering the quantity is not inconsiderable. For a start, there's no split between the gaelic of Scotland and Ireland, with it being seen as little more than a dialectical continuance. While there might not have been a lot of direct contact historically except in Scotland, there would still have been quite a bit of indirect contact though Brithenig, Brethanach, Kerno. More recently, there's probably been a reasonable enough amount of direct contact. Sure, English can do without brogue, but surely not slogan. ;-) --Kgaughan 01:55, 16 October 2005 (PDT)

4b. I would rather that English *there* nòt relegate its more elderly words to the rubbish heap. The English mathomhouse is powerful wondrous in its richness, opulence and its plutonian wealth. It is verily and truly said that English is the allermightiest in its potency and strength of lexis; it is lithe, nimble and graceful at every turn of phrase. Scalds have to scrape the scuppers of their native Scandinavian to scoop up their scant measures, while our bards have barely a brawl or a battle to best their poetic broth. Whatever is chosen, let's make sure English is every bit the wonder *there* it is *here*, if not more!

---

Some discussion notes:

From message #20440: >Premises > >*Here's* Standard English was based on the London and East Midlands >dialects. I propose keeping the same *there* (while other dialects would >still be more evident *there*- not just confined to what we now call >"accents"). > > > I disagree. I think it's already been established that there is no Standard IB - hence the Northernisms in my text.

---

From message #20455:

Where has that been established?? I know I've been out of the loop for a while but I'm sure I would have noticed that! Personally, I think it highly unlikely that there isn't a standard English *there*. Obviously there would be various "standards", as there are *here*, like American English vs. British English (Proper English). Governments (well, bureaucracies) tend to like standards- something to write their official documents in. After all, there's a standard Brithenig. However, as I said, that doesn't preclude the existence (and *literary* existence) of various dialects *there*, such as your "Northern" dialect.

---

From message #20457:

Well, most of my disagreements were based on this point, so I'm going to deal with it alone. I've realised that it hasn't been established, but that 'regional standards' were proposed. I think this is a good idea. Similar to Bokmaal and Nynorsk in Norway. I don't know, I'll leave it open to debate. I do like unstandardisation, though.

---

From message #20459:

Hey! I like that! A "Bokmaal" and "Nynorsk" English! Now that would be cool!

How about this:

After the accession of James V, the focal point of English writing and literature was Doric. This dialect was used for all literature and laws, effectively killing off English as a language of culture. The language of the pulpit and formal dealings was a highly Scotticised English, while the common people continued to use their natural vernaculars.

During the early eighteenth century notable litterateurs such as Samuel Johnson (who was educated in Lleguid on the Anglo-Cambrian border) and David Garrick reacted against this "foreign tongue" and set about writing in their native (East Midlands/London) dialect, while in Northumbria other writers were using a mixed Doric-English literary dialect. Both "dialects" (known as Bookspreack for the northern dialect and Landspeech for the southern dialect) became more widely used and were codified by philologists in the middle of the nineteenth century.

After the Second Union of Crowns, a parliament committee was chosen to choose which of the dialects was to become the "standard Englysch". However, the vote was tied, and parliament decided that both were to become official. Thus, to this day England has two official languages: Bookspreack and Landspeech, both of which are actually the same language.

What do you think?

---

Some musings

There are a few things which have been playing on my mind to a certain degree with regard to IB English.

Firstly, IMO it just looks too "archaic"- almost like English stopped developing shortly after Shakespeare's death. Next door to a relatively "modern"-feeling language like Brithenig the contrast is quite stark. The only things I really have an issue with are the strange representations of /T/ and /D/- thorn really looks out of place in my opinion and (following our old friend Ytterbion), I can't really see any justification for its use.

Secondly, what form does IB English take outside the FK- what standards do Australasia and the NAL use? Their own individual standards? If so, how on earth was the Empire governed? Through the medium of Brithenig? :)

Thirdly, for internal consistency, now we've got more "modern" pop-culture items from *there*, which are being written in *here's* English, we ought to have a form which is at least remarkably close to *here's* standard.

And so, a proposal:

The three "axes" are mainly used in local literature. For governmental business, a "compromise" orthography and super-dialectal standard were formulated, incorporating characteristics from all three standards, while litterateurs kept to their local standards. After all, one can't have clerks in Edinborough scribbling their forms in their standard and clerks in London writing in Southron- bureaucrats like standardisation. This "compromise" standard is rather similar to *here's* British English, only with those changes in vocabulary and a few minor spelling and punctuation changes. Naturally, during the days of Empire, the colonies were administrated using this standard, and that's what's retained and taught in schools, no matter how poets and playwrights might write. So our IB-internal compositions in *here's* English would only need very minor tweaking to make them IB English. Deiniol 18:42, 16 February 2006 (PST)

Regarding English-Australia (the part of australasia that speak english), I would assume that like here, the standard used developed based on "lower-class" speech pattern. To that would have been added a few native words to describe local realities. Interestingly, this could mean different words in english for some well known australia items since unlike *here* englishmen would have first had contact with aborigenes from the western part of australia (and not the eastern one) who speak completely different languages.

Writting wise, they would probably have stayed close to the motherland's habits. --Marc Pasquin 06:58, 17 February 2006 (PST)

Cyrillisation Discussion

Moved from Talk:Slavic Languages:

There's also a Henua Cyrilization, which will be affected - and it had to borrow a Turkestani letter for /J/! And atually, Henua's Cyrillic should technically be based on the Oregonian system (it was written by and for Oregonians), but the latter isn't written yet, as far as I know. Benkarnell 21:15, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like you've just given yourself a job, Ben. BoArthur 21:26, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

(Lowers hand sheepishly) Oh no, teacher, I didn't mean it that way at all! Actually, it could be fun to create a Cyrilization scheme for Engish. I could contact Wayne Chevrier about it. He's not active anymore, but I've tracked him down a couple of times to discuss Oregon-related stuff. Benkarnell 21:31, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Wayne did a Cyrilisation for Oregonian English already. Not sure what he based it on, though, or how much it would have to be changed.

For a chellenge, you can take on the Cyrilisation for Kerno that one finds in Oregon, Alyaska and even filtering across into the UT. Elemtilas 01:26, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Wayne did write it? I've never seen it anywhere. I can tell from Oregon's name on its page that it's basically phonetic (so it's "ikotopik" and not "ekotopic"), but that's the only example I've seen. [EDIT] Apparently I never looked very hard; here it is. But for me the Cyrillic just comes out as a string of question marks. Could somebody copy it onto its own page on this Wiki? It would certainly help inform this discussion. Benkarnell 02:25, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

For what I have kept, see Para. 6f under English. At this point in time, I don't remember if that is Wayne's actual scheme, mine or some sort of middle way. It's been sitting for a few years in an old file called "Ill Bethisad Englishes", which detailed some of the oldest stuff known about the language. Elemtilas 06:17, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, there it is, thanks. The sample text has at least one inconsistency, "ларџъ контйнжэнтъ" ("larje contingent"), in which the same sound spelled the same way in standard English is transliterated differently. But on the whole it seems like a compromise between a strict phonetic system and one that duplicates English spelling. (So it's <ов>, not <оф> or <эв>.) I also notice that the digraph <нг> is used for English <ng>...should that be <нґ> instead? Benkarnell 17:50, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Thinking back, I'm not certain if this is Wayne's system, mine or some harmonisation of the two. In any event, I'm not sure it's a Bad Thing for the system to be a compromise between two competing ideals (phonetics v. traditional spelling). Keeps the thing interesting. What's the difference between <г> and <ґ> as used in Russian? Elemtilas 18:16, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh yes, the compromise is definitely good. I sandwiched it between two possibly bad things, so I apologize if it sounded critical. <г> is a g and <ґ> is an h, but beyond that I don't know... maybe the digraph <nh> is used in Russian where English (and French and Spanish) speakers would use <ng>. I don't know if it's an original Oregonian creation or if it comes from Russian. Either way, the digraph is almost certainly used in Henua's cyrillization. Benkarnell 05:34, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Looks like I've got Ґ for g (/g/, not /Z/) and Г for h -- the opposite of Russian. As for /N/, looks like <nh> is the choice. But that is kind of weird. Perhaps it's a misunderstanding on the part of the alphabet's creator, or an early scribal error that got propagated? Or perhaps just a misprint in the article provided. Looks like HЖ is used for /ndZ/, which is nicely phonetic, so I wonder if what we're looking at, HГ / nh, is just a tpyo. Elemtilas 18:51, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Hm... <nh> is a digraph for /J/ in Portuguese and /n_j/ in Narbonese. Neither is quite the /N/ sound used in English, but I suppose one could retcon a story about Narbonese speakers influencing Oregonian Cyrillic. Or call it a typo and change it. :) Benkarnell 02:58, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Interesting, though I'm not sure that a couple Narbonese speakers would have that kind of influence -- there would already be plenty of literate English speakers asking why NH in stead of the obvious NG? Not to mention why are we letting a couple Frenchmen devise a Cyrillisation for our country's English? ;))) I'll take a look at the text again and see if there's anything I missed or can divine as to why I wrote what I did. It's quite possible I simply tansposed the two Cyrillic letters and the thought I was using the right ones in the Oregonian text. Elemtilas 23:15, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

OK. Actually, as I look at my own comments I seem to switch back and forth regarding my idea of which letter is a g and which is an h. Maybe it's best to take a time out and let people who actually know Cyrillic well take a look :). Benkarnell 23:55, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Obviously, I didn't do thát the first time around! Perhaps a different letter can be found for H, rather than one that is easily confused for a G. Elemtilas 03:26, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

In *here*'s Cyrillic orthography of Central Asian languages having the /h/ phoneme (Kazakh, Uzbek etc), they use an inverted <Ч>, thus <Һ>. They also use a variant of <Н> with a tail (<Ң>) for /N/. In the Cyrillic orthography for Altai (*here*), they use a letter which is an <НГ> combination - the horizontal bar of the <Г> is welded to the top-right of the <Н>, though I've never seen this letter in any Unicode list of Cyrillic characters. For the Turkestani Cyrillisation, I basically borrowed *here*'s Kazakh orthography (which is the most versatile as it has all of the letters that the other languages need and one or two more) and tweaked a little. - Geoff 12:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

<Һ> could certainly work for H; I think the digraph <HГ> for NG works well enough. The point I think wasn't to satisfy linguists so much as to write normal English with a different set of letters. I like the idea of making <HГ> into a digraph too. Perhaps we can go with that. Elemtilas 12:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Unicode does have the НГ combination—U+04A4 (capital) Ҥ and U+04A5 (small) ҥ CYRILLIC LIGATURE EN GHE. —Muke Tever | ✎ 00:26, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Padraic; I'm sure Oregonians would prefer the digraph <HГ> to a letter borrowed from Turkestani. What I've done for Henua is say that the official Cyrillic (which only dates to the 1980s or so) borrowed <Ң> - linguists deliberately created it, and no doubt felt it was silly using digraphs for a language with only ten consonants (counting /?/!). But almost everyone from Oregon uses <HГ> when actually transcribing Arero Henua.

Another option for /h/ could be <x>. It's a different sound, but since there's no /x/ in English, the Oregonians could have considered using it as a placeholder if they were unfamiliar with the Central Asian use of <Һ>. Benkarnell 13:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, there is /x/ in IB English in many dialects. Elemtilas 23:00, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The Scots... but that's a whole separate language *there*, isn't it? I can't imagine it having too much presence in Oregon. Benkarnell 00:07, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Aye, the Scots leid haes the bonny /x/ an aa. But English has it as well, in several dialects. Elemtilas 02:29, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Och aye, but since it is dialectical, are the Oregonians likely to reserve an entire letter for it in their system? <Һ> is an interesting way to solve the problem, but IMO it's more interesting if Oregon and Turkestan's systems evolve in different directions. From looking around, <x> is used to write /h/ in Moldovan Cyrillic, which of course wouldn't exist *there*. Benkarnell 00:27, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure and what English *there* isn't dialectical? ;)) What I'm saying is that Oregonian may very well have /x/ in its inventory -- however it might end up being spelled. Certainly a number of Oregonians would, if not all.

The reason we have nicht v. nigh in the spelling conventions is because we have /nIxt/ v. /na:I/ in the sound scheme. We've never sorted out exactly which dialects have it, but English seems to hint that it is a major dialect (quite possibly London) and that the sound is commonly met: "Under influence from medieval Brithenig scribes, OE -h- (that *here* became spelled -gh- by ME scribes) came to be spelled -ch- in such words that end in -t. Words that end in the old -h sibilant have come to be spelled -gh. In the modern language these words still retain this spelling, and in many places, the associated sound: nicht, knicht. On the other hand, we have nigh, sigh (not nich, sich) which have universally lost the sibilant."

On the other hand, Oregonian per se may not have /x/. On the third hand, they may have /x/ but spell it with a digraph, like every other English, and use the Cyrillic "X" for something else (I'm guessing for use as "H"). Possibilities abound. Actually, I think it would be rather curious if they did just that. Agreed about diverging in different directions -- we don't know at what date the Oregonians were doing this (I think it safe to say 19th century or before), so there's no good reason as of yet to copy from Turkestan. Me, I'm in favour of a digraph for Oregonian "CH" and "GH", /x/ for those as have it and /h/ for those as don't, rather than a more phonetic transcription.

What do you think? Along the lines of Cyrillic X = "H"? Slight increase in maggelity that would yield "КX" for /x/, (possibly) "ГX" for /h/ "GH" and "X" for /h/. That would actually be pretty nifty, since in English letters, "CH" has two pronunciations, /x/ and /tS/, while in Cyrillic they'd be spelled differently as well. Also "КC" for /ks/, since "X" would be moved from that spot. Bit of a mixed bag, since they have single characters for "SH", "TH" and "WH". This solution wouldn't answer whether or no Orgonian has /x/, just that it follows typical English orthography, only with Cyrillic letters. Elemtilas 01:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Well there's the confusion, I had thought you were talking about *our* English, not *their* English :)). I like that idea a lot, and it's sort of what I was thinking. In English we have very few letters with only one phonetic job - I think the attitude is that a letter that can only make one sound must have not been paying attention in school, or something. But yeah, I think whether or not Oregonian dialects have a [x], I think they ought not have a special letter for it, since there's just no precedent for it in English writing. I think that's a wonderful system you've outlined for G and H and the associated digraphs, it ends up feeling at the same time quite English and quite Oregonian (since they seem to love intricate complexity almost as much as the Veneds!). And I don't think there's as much cause to worry about the inconsistency in using single glyphs for /S/ and the rest - English spelling is nothing if not inconsistent, and anyway those sounds behave a little more predictably in English and can safely use single characters, I think. Benkarnell 14:45, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah sorry! Yes, *their* English. OK, we agree on no special single letter for [x]; but a single letter for [S] is okeh. Thanks for the compliment, but I must bow most graciously to the Venedic penchant for complexity in the face of obvious simplicity! Alright then -- I'll work on redoing the chart. Elemtilas 01:31, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Okeh, I went back to the chart to make changes discussed above. I reworked G, GH, NG, NGE, H, CH, and X. I had a look at some older Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets and found some things of possible use. I found that PS was adopted into Cyrillic in order to render Greek words in psi -- perhaps that could transfer over. (Whether it remains or later falls into disuse could provide for some Oregonian political spates.) Omega was introduced for the particle o (like "o say can ye see"); and perhaps the cyrillificators had that in mind. It strikes me that omega could serve to distinguish between "long" and "short" English O -- a distinction that Russian lacked, but of course the original Greek model has got. I think the old letter ksi would be handy for Oregonian X (eks), rather than a digraph KC. Had a look at QU and found the Cyrillic qoppa, which doesn't seem to have done much in either Russian or Greek. Makes a dandy QU, though. For now, I left it as part of a digraph -- should it stand alone for [kw]? Any other comments or emmendations? Elemtilas 18:51, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Questions:

1. "GH" refers to final GH, correct? As in through? Do the <ough> and <augh> letter combinations keep their etymological spellings in Oregonian, or do some words switch to something more phonetic? (When you make a joke, do I лаугх or do I лафф?)
2. Why so many Y's? (I know that is unchanged; I'm just curious.)
3. So the psi is only used for Greek loans? Would I take a class in Ѱйкхоложй? That is nifty.
4. I think that given the English propensity to lengthen and shorten vowels when we add a suffix, it would get confusing to distinguish between long and short o; or at least, it would confuse English speakers used to etymological spelling. The connections between harmony, harmonious, and harmonica would be lost, for example.

That's all, I think. Henua's Cyrillic page is now up to date. Benkarnell 14:38, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I am sure ГХ refers to all instances of G followed by H regardless how pronounced -- just like GH in Roman letters. So, you would лаугх at the joke you heard over at the Кэгхоусэ Пуб. Though a character might "лафф" in the "комйѯ". You can get by with two Ys; and I guess the reason was seen as a phonetic one by the cyrillisers -- the difference between glide/semivowel and true vowel. To be honest, it looks like I could collapse medial and final, as they contain the same information, and I think I'll do just that. Psi was a neat feature of Glagolitic and Cyrillic that I thought would be neat to bring over. Whether it gets much use or not depends on register. Possibly, you might find ѱйкхe in a uni text book, but you might find псйкхe in a newspaper or school report. Agreed about the utility of distinguishing "long" vs. "short" O. I was just hypothesising that it could be possible to do so. Really what I liked about Ѡ in Cyrillic was that it was borrowed almost entirely for use in a single word. I think it could be used to great orthographic / typographic effect in Oregonian for the particle "o", just as it is in Russian. Elemtilas 22:05, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Especially around Advent with the Great Ѡ Antiphons. So psi and omega are "prestige letters", then? That's very interesting. A good shorthand for snobby writing: "You read his books? Nothing but psis and omegas!"

I forgot about Q. I can see it going either way. Really, the fact that English has a letter that only appears in a single digraph is a sign of the lack of any control. If anybody's going to reform English spelling, even incidentally by creating a system like this, I'd think the "Q problem" would be addressed. And if the Oregonians don't go with KW, I'd think that Q alone would suffice. Just my opinion, though, and I know that Oregonian is certainly no slavishly phonetic system. Benkarnell 22:34, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

PS: I think it may be time for a Майн Паж in Oregonian. Benkarnell 23:36, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I was considering qoppa alone for [kw], but I am not sure the cyrillisation involved any kind of spelling reform as we usually understand the term. Clearly, judging from the one text we have, it's simply standard English spelling with different letters. I would suspect that if they were really doing spelling reform, they'd also address the other digraphs. Elemtilas 01:02, 12 February 2010 (UTC)