Euphony and non-phonemic orthographies

[LeCiagoPanda]

I wanted to make a thread about beautiful orthographies and letter combinations. I've always loved Celtic orthographies, which I feel make the languages more distinctive and beautiful. In English, I like words from Old English and French, and I love the cluster "ea" in "earth" and "heather", as well as the name "Harlowe". In French, I love words ending in "-eaux", such as "Bordeaux", and in Italian I like words ending in "-zia" such as "Venezia". I dislike, for instance, Quechua's orthography, which I feel is boring in how generic it is, and much prefer Nahuatl's, which despite having its shortcomings, is much more distinctive.

What do you think makes an orthography beautiful?
What orthographies do you like?
What letter combinations do you like?

[Nortaneous]

my favorite letter combination is http://www.goatse.info/hello.jpg

[Aurora Rossa]

my favorite letter combination is http://www.goatse.info/hello.jpg

Ew, you are disgusting. That hardly seems like appropriate posting behavior for this forum. Also, damn my inexplicably persistent reflex of clicking on picture links without reading the title all the way.

More on topic, though, I have always like the use of <j> for /j/ in German and other neighboring language orthographies. The combination <qv> in Swedish also really appeals to me, though I don't know if they still do that.

[cromulant]

The combination <qv> in Swedish also really appeals to me, though I don't know if they still do that.

Then why don't you change your handle back to Jabechasqvi? Your current one is kinda douchey.

[Nortaneous]

it is the year of our lord two thousand thirteen and,

[Hallow XIII]

A beautiful orthography is one that strikes a balance between the following three points:

a) One-to-one letter/sound correspondence
b) Avoidance of too many uncommon letters
c) Systematicity

Just add your typographic preferences.

On that note, what on earth makes you think Celtic orthography is not phonemic? They just have an excess of polygraphs, but there aren't really any silent letters or similar phenomena.

[Radius Solis]

A beautiful orthography is one that strikes a balance between the following three points:

a) One-to-one letter/sound correspondence
b) Avoidance of too many uncommon letters
c) Systematicity

With all respect to you, that is, to me, a rather robotic standard of beauty. Spelling/orthography is more than just a recording system, it offers another dimension for language to play in. A dimension that can take on a life of its own. Horrifically impractical though Hanzi is, say, you cannot deny it is visually attractive, nor that it has had linguistically interesting reverse effects on the spoken language.

And even short of that, just within the realms of the Latin alphabet, we all tend to have aesthetic judgements attached to various letter collocations. Whether it's liking Nahuatl's sprinkling of <tl> and <x> over everything like salt on food, or a distaste for English's -h digraphs, we have these impressions. It is obviously important not to confuse these for the language being beautiful or ugly, but that does not mean we should not feel free to enjoy them.

[Hallow XIII]

Just add your typographic preferences.

I simply put down the robotic parts because not only are my aesthetic tastes manifold, but I do not think I could list them even if I wanted to. This is the only reasonably codifiable part - and note this only applies to the Latin alphabet.

[Thry]

my favorite letter combination is http://www.goatse.info/hello.jpg

xD

Hell, why not, non-pulmonics are never given enough credit.

Ew, you are disgusting. That hardly seems like appropriate posting behavior for this forum. Also, damn my inexplicably persistent reflex of clicking on picture links without reading the title all the way.

More on topic, though, I have always like the use of <j> for /j/ in German and other neighboring language orthographies. The combination <qv> in Swedish also really appeals to me, though I don't know if they still do that.

He is disgusting? It's not like it's his ass - and as long as it's an anal fricative, you're fine; anal liquids are the disturbing ones. Also lol you're an old member you should know about posting behavior on this forum.
<qv>, otoh, that is disgusting.

To the point:

What do you think makes an orthography beautiful?
What orthographies do you like?
What letter combinations do you like?

As my L1 is Spanish, and we long for what we lack, I love English orthography, and the French one, and in general those which are more-or-less fossilized and have etymological depth, I really like diachronics and consider that beautiful.

Letter combinations I like in Roman script are: <qu, ph, th, ui, ck, ng, ct, wy>... <ae oe eo>
In Greek letters I don't really like the combinations you usually see... <τσ δζ μπ ντ γκ γγ>... I mean, you have to use them at some point and grow accustomed to them but I don't really like them.

I don't like diacritics much, I favor digraphs and more obscure combinations (as I said, fossilized script), so I don't hold the one-letter-one-phoneme commandment sacred. I don't mean it has to be chaotic but order can take deep and complex forms!

[LeCiagoPanda]

A beautiful orthography is one that strikes a balance between the following three points:

a) One-to-one letter/sound correspondence
b) Avoidance of too many uncommon letters
c) Systematicity

Just add your typographic preferences.

On that note, what on earth makes you think Celtic orthography is not phonemic? They just have an excess of polygraphs, but there aren't really any silent letters or similar phenomena.

Scottish Gaelic is rife with silent letters,
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=258858
http://www.cuhwc.org.uk/page/unofficial ... ing-gaelic

"fhionniadh" being pronounced "YOON-lee"? It doesn't seem very phonemic to me, especially compared to languages like Spanish.
Also, I'll agree to disagree with your first point; I personally love silent letters and the like.

On a related note, what about the shapes of the letters themselves? I've always loved "c" and strongly disliked "k", and am ambivalent about "s"; hence, I try to use "c" in my conlangs as much as possible. Anybody else feel the same way?

[Vuvuzela]

Don't really like too much <ˇ> on consonants. It can be alright in moderation, but isn't to be overused. I think German orthography is visually appealing; regardless of how impractical things like <tzsch> are, they'e, well, not exactly beautiful, but fun to look at anyway. I also like how Dutch writes her vowels, things like <aai> and <ij> are pleasing to look at, as is French <eau>. Not a big fan of the way Irish does consonants, it feels like every third letter is <h>, but I like vowel digraphs and trigraphs, which it has in droves. Welsh handles consonants better; doubled consonants like <ll> <ff> and <dd> are pretty, and it has the good sense to get rid of <k> an <v>.

[Salmoneus]

This thread is nothing to do with euphony.

[LeCiagoPanda]

This thread is nothing to do with euphony.

I see your point, but I was originally going for how an orthography can affect the perceived beauty of even the spoken language (as in how some French words to me aren't beautiful when spoken, or when written in IPA, but are beautiful if you see the original text to go along with what's being spoken), it just ended up being mostly about the orthography.

[Hallow XIII]

"fhionniadh" being pronounced "YOON-lee"? It doesn't seem very phonemic to me, especially compared to languages like Spanish.

It is, though, because "Fhionnlaidh" is the lenited form of "Fionnlaidh". That is, it does not occur in isolation, the silent "fh" is therefore not a fossilized relic but rather reflects a synchronic process. Second, assuming it occurred in isolation, if it were spelt "Ionnlaidh" it would not be pronounced the same way, but rather ["i:n_Gli].

Also, unlike in other language with silent letters, polygraphs like <aidh> are pronounced differently from <ai>. See the Irish spelling reform not simply deleting letters but replacing plurals in -idh with -í. Same story with doublets like Claíomh or Claidheamh; these are polygraphs, not silent letters - see, for contrast, languages like French, where various consonants, if removed from the orthography, would do nothing at all to the pronunciation.

EDIT:

"YOON-lee"

No.

[Ser]

Spelling/orthography is more than just a recording system, it offers another dimension for language to play in. A dimension that can take on a life of its own. Horrifically impractical though Hanzi is, say, you cannot deny it is visually attractive, nor that it has had linguistically interesting reverse effects on the spoken language.

Not to mention Hanzi homophones can be used for all sorts of puns of interpretation. Some years ago, I saw a friend of mine on facebook making fun of another by spelling her last name, 朱 zhū 'Vermilion', as 豬 zhū 'pig'. Wikipedia mentions the example of 自衛隊 Zìwèiduì 'Self-defense forces', the term for the Japanese military, also referred to as 自慰队 Zìwèiduì 'Self-comfort forces', i.e. masturbation forces.

I've also seen cases mentioned where the insult is only found in changing the Kanxi radical of a character, for example to 犭, the dog radical. But I can't find any again. Some Chinese-speaking Christians change the radical of the third-person singular pronoun 他 tā from 亻(the human radical) to 礻(he spirit/divine radical), giving 祂, when referring to God.

No.

How is it pronounced, out of curiosity?

[Hallow XIII]

No.

How is it pronounced, out of curiosity?

Oh, basically like that ([j\Iu~n_Gli]). My issue is with the transcription. It gives me hives (though, in hindsight, since LeCiagoPanda isn't to blame for it this was wholly unnecessary).

[Drydic]

<eddy> I HATE CHANNEL TOPICS
<eddy> WHY MUST THEY EXIST
<eddy> AND WHY DO I STILL CLICK THEM WHEN THEY END IN .JPG

ftfy.

[Xephyr]

Also, damn my inexplicably persistent reflex of clicking on picture links without reading the title all the way.

Waitwhat?

[Pole, the]

my favorite letter combination is http://www.goatse.info/hello.jpg

Ew, you are disgusting. That hardly seems like appropriate posting behavior for this forum. Also, damn my inexplicably persistent reflex of clicking on picture links without reading the title all the way.

Personally, I like that one;

[Ulrike Meinhof]

The combination <qv> in Swedish also really appeals to me, though I don't know if they still do that.

Not since the late 1800s. I recall having mentioned this before, but in case you've forgotten, your much revered <hv> is no more since 1906 and <hj lj dj gj> are all /j/.

[Qwynegold]

I like the Welsh, Cornish, Breton, and both Gaelic orthographies, and the Old Spanish (?) orthographies for Nahuatl and Mayan. Especially Nahuatl. Pinyin and some romanizations of Korean (don't know their names) are also pretty. French orthography is pretty, but the language sounds awful. Oh, and the orthography of North Sámi is also pretty. And Hungarian. And Icelandic. And romanized Sumerian, though that one has more to do with the sounds of the words (or how I think they sound like). I can't explain why I find any of these pretty.

As for letter combinations, I like qw, rw, tz, and xh representing /kʃ/.

The combination <qv> in Swedish also really appeals to me, though I don't know if they still do that.

Not since the late 1800s. I recall having mentioned this before, but in case you've forgotten, your much revered <hv> is no more since 1906 and <hj lj dj gj> are all /j/.

I can only think of Qvist, and other surnames ending in -qvist, and the sewing machine brand Husqvarna.

[linguoboy]

both Gaelic orthographies

"Both"? I can think of at least four still in general use: Standard Irish (a.k.a. "Caighdeán Oifigiúil"), Traditional [pre-Reform] Irish, Scottish-Gaelic, and Manx.

[Sacemd]

On a related note, what about the shapes of the letters themselves? I've always loved "c" and strongly disliked "k", and am ambivalent about "s"; hence, I try to use "c" in my conlangs as much as possible. Anybody else feel the same way?

My native language is Dutch and <k> is much more common than <c> there (it is only used in loanwords and the digraph <ch> (for /x/ in native words). Despite that I like <c> much more for certain orthographies: it makes words seem old (Either Latinish or Medievalish (Which was probably the effect Tolkien wanted when using <c> for /k/ in Elvish)) or foreign to me. (Well, foreign in a Europeanish way, because /k/ is used for the sound in transliterations of a lot of non-roman-script languages.)
The problem with using <c> for /k/ is, as Zompist kindly pointed out, that people will probably read "se" and "si" instead of "ke" and "ki".

[linguoboy]

The problem with using <c> for /k/ is, as Zompist kindly pointed out, that people will probably read "se" and "si" instead of "ke" and "ki".

Or possibly [ʧe] and [ʧi], depending on what other clues there are in the orthography.