Re: BBC does it again

On Jun 12, 12:05 am, "John Atkinson" <johna...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote...
On Jun 11, 9:38 pm, "John Atkinson" <johna...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote...
Abondolo (Routledge Uralic) has a-umlaut, a-ring, and double-a (no
diacritic) (no /:/ at all)..

No ":", true. But, like all the authors in that book, he uses double
letters in exactly the same way as writers on other language groups
use
":" or the macron -- to denote that that vowel phoneme is long. No
doubt they decided on this notation to agree with the orthographic
convention in many Uralic languages, in particular Finnish. (Similar
reasoning applies to their use of a-umlaut and a-ring.)

ISTM that they're not intending us to think that the double-letter
notation implies anything "different" about the sounds in those
languages from the sounds notated with ":" or the macron in other
languages. They're equivalent notations for the same thing.
There's a huge difference between saying that vowel length is a
phoneme, and that long vowels are a sequence of two short vowels.

No one (including Abondolo) is "saying" (or implying) either of these
things.  In some languages, long vowels may indeed be bimorphemic,

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

either a sequence of two short vowels,  or, a short vowel plus a
morpheme of length.  (I don't think either of these is the case in the
Uralic languages that have long vowels, but what would I know?)  In
others, long vowels (and diphthongs too) are apparently just as
monomorphemic as short ones.

I can see the logic of using only the macron in the latter languages,
only double vowels in those where long vowels behave like other cases of
two short vowels in hiatus, and only ":" where an added morpheme of
length is the best (or most economical) analysis (which may well be the
case in many Australian languages).

Is this standard practice, in your experience?  (Rhetorical question)

Similarly, in Polynesian and Australian languages, some authors use
double letters and some use macrons, both in phonemic representations
and standard orthographies. Thus the Maori orthographic convention
uses macrons, while most developers of scripts for Australian
languages
use double letters because most of the people who'll be using these
orthographies are already used to writing English, which (as usually
written) doesn't have diacritics. Actually, in Maori, many writers
wrongly leave out the macrons, for the same reason -- because of the
influence of English.

Your quoter _still_ isn't working right.

Orthographies need not be phonemic.

Of course not.  They rarely are, completely.  But when linguistically
sophisticated people devise orthographies for previously unwritten
languages, they tend to make a serious effort to be as phonemic as is
reasonably practical.

This is left over from Pike's "Technique for Reducing Languages to
Writing." People like Smalley went far beyond the notion that a
phonemic orthography is an ideal orthography.

In Maori, leaving out the macrons isn't "wrong" because it's
sub-phonemic.  It's "wrong" because it represents a deviation from the
accepted orthographic tradition -- that is, it's a spelling mistake.

And how did that "tradition" become "accepted"?
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: BBC does it again
    ... convention in many Uralic languages, ... and that long vowels are a sequence of two short vowels. ... uses macrons, while most developers of scripts for Australian languages ... orthographies are already used to writing English, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: BBC does it again
    ... convention in many Uralic languages, ... phoneme, and that long vowels are a sequence of two short vowels. ... orthographies are already used to writing English, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Are Linguistic Changes Accelerated by...
    ... >>> Two reasons that languages might change are to increase the perceptual ... >>> articulatory difficulty of particular sounds or sequences of sounds. ... > lots of vowels have to make use of the periphery of the vowel space ... A certain amount of ambiguity is tolerated, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: BBC does it again
    ... phoneme, and that long vowels are a sequence of two short vowels. ... Does this mean you don't agree that there are such languages? ... orthographies are already used to writing English, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: BBC does it again
    ... >> phoneme, and that long vowels are a sequence of two short vowels. ... Does this mean you don't agree that there are such languages? ... phonemic orthography is an ideal orthography. ...
    (sci.lang)
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