On 23/09/2010 17:40, BPJ wrote:
> 2010-09-23 17:59, R A Brown skrev:
[snip]
>> Yes, _c'h_ IMO is particularly ugly. They couldn't, of
>> course use
>> _ch_ as that has the value /S/ in Breton (and _j_ = /Z/).
>> As most
>> occurrences of _c'h_ (about 80% IIRC) are in fact
>> _voiced_, I've
>> always thought _gh_ would have been better.
>
> Actually my brain wants to read _c'h_ as an aspirated version
> of whatever _c'_ might be; years of dealing with Latinized
> Sanskrit has taken its toll!

Maybe - but the apostrophe traditionally denotes the 
dropping of some sound or other. In any case, using a 
trigraph to represent a single sound has never been 
something I've like.

>> The "Orthographie Universitaire" which was introduced in
>> 1955 but,
>> AFAIK, never caught on, voiced _c'h_ was to spelled simply
>> as _h_
>> and _c'h_ was to be reserved only for the voiceless sound.
>> A major
>> improvement IMO - but, as I say, it never caught on.
>
> Isn't _h_ used otherwise?

No - as I understand it, _h_ represents a voiced glottal 
fricative, as it does, e.g. in Czech and Afrikaans. My 
understanding is that _h_ and voiceless _c'h_ pair up in 
much the same way as _h_ and _ch_ in Czech.

> IIRC the _zh_ is /h/ in one dialect
> and /z/ in the others (reflex of */T/ which went > /h/ here
> and > [D] > /z/ there I'd guess -- alas I'm forgetting things
> at an alarming rate...)

No you haven't = that's precisely what _zh_ denotes: a /z/ 
in some dialects and voiced glottal plosive /h/ in others - 
both being reflexes of /T/ > /D/.

> Anyhow if all of /h x G S Z/ exist and they want 'French'
> defaults then why on earth not use _h kh gh ch j_. After
> all _kh_ is the usual Frenchy, as Englishy, transcription
> for /x/X/.

Indeed.

> (On the freak side I once saw _rh_ used for /G/ in a French
> context in an old book. Happily that practice never caught
> on/died out, though *if* I were using a lot of _-h_ digraphs
> (but, as you may remember, I actually dislike 'em!) I might use
> _rh_ for /R/ vs. something /r/-ish.)

Xhosa uses _rh_ /x/ and _gr_ /G/

But that's moving the thread away from Celticity   ;)

-- 
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"Ein Kopf, der auf seine eigene Kosten denkt,
wird immer Eingriffe in die Sprache thun."
[J.G. Hamann, 1760]
"A mind that thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language".