John Vertical wrote:

 > On Sun, 7 Feb 2010 21:46:27 +0100, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
 > > >Editorial note: it seems there would be no
 > > >words with /zg/ derivable form Latin, so
 > > >_sg_ for /Z/ in all positions may work!
 >
 > That's better too.

I think so. Iff _s+g_ should arise at a compound
boundary there's always the ol' hyphen to resort to.


 > >> >> I don't see a problem with _ghl_ in theory, but if *gl 
remains,
 > >> >> why use _gl_ for /L/? Or does /gl/ only come up at morpheme
 > >> >> boundaries / by some secondary development?
 > > >
 > > >And what, then, could I realistically use for /L/?  Mind you
 > > >_ll_ is already taken for /r`/, and I don't like _lh_ or _nh_,
 > > >which chime badly with the way the lang uses _ch, gh_.
 >
 > Perhaps then _l_ for /L/ before front vowels (at least
 > when etymologically from palatalization of *l, as seems
 > to be the case here), _lh_ for /l/ in the same context?
 > (Repeatible for nasals.)

Nah. There are two problems with this: there are a lot
more /l/ than /L/, and a lot of /i/ due to umlaut, and
then there's final /L/ (_viegl_  < VEC'LU etc.) While
final /l/ is rather rare I wouldn't like to treat
[+final] as a palatalizing environment. _Ly_ would take
care of that, but then there is the fact that most /L/
derive from GL/C'L/G'L -- many more than from LJ I
think, which speaks for _gl_, and moreover _ly_ smacks
of modern 'phonetic' spelling rather than something a
medieval scribe, who would have observed that the words
he pronounced /L2yr@/ and /seJ/ were spelled _gloria_
and _signum_ in Latin, came up with.  I really like _gl_
for /L/; the problem is /gl/!

 > > >And yes /gl/ in inherited words mostly occurs at morpheme
 > > >boundaries or at least etymological morpheme boundaries.

This might justify leaving _gl_ ambiguous.

Yes, except that that would leave _gl_ (and _gn_) most
the only ambiguities in the orthography. In any case I
think _ghl, ghn_ are rather late additions in order to
:remove what used to be the only ambiguity in the
orthography.

Philip Newton wrote:
 > 2010/2/7 Benct Philip Jonsson <[log in to unmask]>:
 > > > Truth to tell I'd sooner like Rumantsch to
 > > > adopt _sh_ for /Z/ -- cf. the German trans-
 > > > literation of Russian!
 >
 > I wouldn't mind having distinct /S/ and /Z/, either -- and distinct
 > word-initial /s/ and /z/, for that matter!

Barring diacritics _sz_ for /s/ might take care of
that, though it may be tiresome if /s/ is the more
common.  Some Romanists used _ś_ or _ṣ_ to indicate
/z/ in Italian words/dialects (and _ź/ẓ_ for /dz/).

 > > > What's more I remembered today that Old English
 > > > is thought to have adopted _cyrice_ from the
 > > > terminology in the archbishopric of Lyon,
 > > > and since the Borgonzay Church historically
 > > > *is* the archbishopric of Lujó (OTL Lyon)
 > > > ECCLESIA may not existh in Rhodrese.
 >
 > There's also BASILICA to pick from (cf. Romansh
 > _baselgia_, Romanian _biserica_ (sp?)).

_Basailge_ might do for the buildings, but not for the
institutions.  Besides the OTL historical fact of
KYRIAKA beigng used in the archbishopric of Lyon is
quite a fat pointer.  I wonder if the Germanic words
imply that those in Gaul stressed the word on the first
syllable.  Probably not. If it was Latin KYRIÁKA > VL
KYRJÁKA it might become Rhodrese _chyriaghe_ or more
popular _criaghe_.  The initial /k/ in Germanic is
intriguing.  Either the Romance form had [c] as late as
the seventh century when the AngloSaxons were
converted, or it originated as a very conscious
Graecism.  I'm inclined to believe the latter, but that
makes the feminine gender a bit odd -- the Greek term
being _kyriakón_ IIANM --, unless it was influenced by
ECCLESIA or originated as an adjective to BASILICA!

/BP 8^)>
-- 
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch atte melroch dotte se
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  "C'est en vain que nos Josués littéraires crient
  à la langue de s'arrêter; les langues ni le soleil
  ne s'arrêtent plus. Le jour où elles se *fixent*,
  c'est qu'elles meurent."           (Victor Hugo)