Using Cyrillic for Irish, was Re: Silent E

Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...> wrote:

>
> Keith Gaughan scripsit:
>
> > Russian has it easy -- it has it's own alphabet that's suited to
> > writing stuff in it with. Gaelic, on the other hand, has to make do with
> > an alphabet completely unsuited to it. Instead it uses a kludge with
> > vowels to get the right effect. Of course, this means that outsiders
> > look at the language with bewilderment.
>
> I think the main decision in rendering Irish using Cyrillic is to decide
> whether to use Irish-style spelling rules (h's and eclipsis) or Welsh-style
> (phonemic).  Assuming the latter, then the main problem would be the
> lack of an /h/ letter for "sh" and "th".  The natural h-letter for
> Irish-style spelling would either be the dot itself or CYRILLIC LETTER
> PALOCHKA (looks like "I" but is really a diacritic; it is caseless).
I'd go with the Irish-style spelling myself. It's not (I hope) because I've grown
up with it, but because I think it's advantages outweigh it's disadvantages.
I'm ambivolent about what's used for lenition though as either solution has the
same degree of elegance.

This all reminds me of a joking thought I had that some time around the foundation
of the Saorstat, Cork would declare itself to be the Ecotopic People's Republic
of Cork and adopt the Cyrillic alphabet ;-)

K.

--
Keith Gaughan                         In the land of the blind, the
kmgaughan@eircom.net                    one-eyed man is a heretic
http://www.geocities.com/keithgaughan/ [Temporarily]

Reply