Re: VMs: Re: Re: Transcription Ramble

[illumin8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Dennis wrote:
> 
> illumin8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> >
> > And now for some epigraphic/calligraphic history:
> >
> > When Late Middle English sloppy cursive writing closed the top of Wy
> > (Yy) to look like a clipped Thorn (Þþ) (or Tolkien's R tengwa) a dot was
> > placed over the Yy until those damned Dutch printers ;) got hold of
> > English. That's why we have "Ye Olde Candy Shoppe". That is a
> > bastardized Þorn in "Þe".
> 
>         So did Wy have the voiced modern th sound?  I thought
> thorn was the unvoiced th sound in "thistle".  It's
> that way in present-day Icelandic, and edh is the
> voiced sound is English "the".  I never have
> understood  "Ye Olde Candy Shoppe".
> 
The stock answer is that the Thorn Þþ and Edh Ðð characters represented
both voiceless TH & voiced DH/TH (IPA [theta] & [ð]) at the whim of the
writer. From my high school German; college linguistics, Old and Middle
English; and business Swedish, I think that there was more phonetic
richness and flux than is now acknowledged.

For instance - I completely disagree with the standard transliteration
of Old English vowels. I think ALL the Old English vowel digraphs
represent separate phonemes just like the well known AE = cAt. It was a
Latin writer's best attempt to represent Germanic vowels not found in
Latin. Draw the OE vowel parallelogram like this:

I Y        U
IE
 E EO     O
  EA     OA
   AE   A

And you can see how each digraph shows most Germanic vowels unrounded
and rounded. All of these vowel sounds were in Middle English but they
were spelled differently by the Normans.

Conclusion: very few sounds have fallen out of use but many letters
have.


> > A similar thing happened with Old English Pp and Wynn (Ww). Only a bar
> > crossed Wynn's tail. Which also looked like a clipped Þorn which
> > sometimes had a bar crossing its top.
> 
>         So what sound did Old English Ww represent?  And how
> did it represent the different "th" sounds anyway?
> 
Mayhaps Iy wæs unclear heere? The Old English LETTERS Pp, Runic Wynn
(W), and Runic Thorn (TH) were similar in shape. P is rounded,

     |>
     |
Wynn |  was sharp at the top,

      |
      |>
Thorn |  was sharp in the middle.

In cursive they and Y rounded and looked similar enuf to be confused:
       _
     |/ |
Wynn | /  was rounded and angled up to the top,
     |
     |

      |
      | _
      |/ |
Thorn | /   was rounded and angled up to the middle,
      |
      |


     o _
    \ / |
Y    \ /  was angled & rounded and later dotted.
      \ 
       \

Later Wynn was crossed on the bottom to separate from P.
       _
     |/ |
     | /
   __|__
     |

And Thorn was crossed at the top for a shorthand þæt "that".
   ___|___
      | _
      |/ |
      | /
      |
      |

Now imagine a text with four similar looking but subtly enhanced
letters. EVA <ecschSh> anyone?

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