[Spellyans] dictionnaire de l'Académie française

[Michael Everson]

On 30 Jan 2011, at 00:10, Eddie Climo wrote:

> On 2011 Gen 29, at 23:10, Michael Everson wrote:
>> In KS … diacritical marks are not optional. They are a normal part of the orthography.
> 
> NO! I signed up to KS to be part of a process of discussion, out of which KS would emerge as a result of consensus amongst the members of the group. Until that consensus has been clearly ascertained, then there is *no* KS—there is nothing more than a set of proposed forms.

What is in KS is in there for linguistic reasons. 

> Let me emphasise this point: KS is NOT to be the product solely of what YOU say or what Nicholas or any other individual in this group says. If it were, then this whole group exercise would have been a mere sham.

I note this political statement.

> I believe that Spellyans does yet not have any such clear consensus on this issue of diacritics. That is precisely why I started this thread. For that reason, I believe that you are acting inappropriately is stating as fact what KS *is*, rather than merely as what *you* would like it to be (if you are able to attract a consensus for your viewpoint).

I note this political statement.

> I agree with the observation made by Christian. In my opinion as well, two of the diacritics *proposed* by Michael and Nicholas are redundant,

They have been published, not only in a number of translations, but also in Skeul an Tavas. That means they have been used, not just proposed.

> namely the diaeresis to denote bys/bes words, and the circumflex when not used to show anomalous vowel length.

Where is your linguistic argument? You have made an assertion that diacritics are redundant. You have not however dealt with the linguistic argument I gave:

1) We distinguish "bras" 'treachery' [bræːz] from "brâs" 'large' [bræːz]~[brɒːz]. This marks quality, not quantity, that is, it marks anomalous pronunciation, not anomalous vowel length.

2) We distinguish "bys" 'until' [bɪz] from "bÿs" 'world' [biːz]. This *is* marking quantity, that is, anomalous vowel length (since the phoneme /i/ is realized as [ɪ] when short and [iː] when long.

> These 2 need to discarded from KS.

Why? Don't just assert "they are redundant" again because I have shown above that they mark *linguistic* distinctions. If you don't mark "brâs" then how will you indicate that for many speakers it (and a set of other words) has the phoneme /ɒ/ rather than the phoneme /æ/? If you don't mark "bÿs" how will you encourage learners to give many words with "y" a long vowel, when the general rule is that "y" indicates a short vowel (as in gwin gwydn)? Please note that already nearly everyone who has learnt KK pronounces "pryv" as 'privv' [prɪv] precisely because of this.  

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/