Orthographic quirks in natlangs

[Prinsessa]

‹s› /s/ before a vowel or finally, /∫/ before consonants

‹s-ch› /∫t͡ɕ/

Yep, a hyphen. S-charpa means "shoe", tudais-ch means "German"

The hyphen shouldn't even be necessary if the first rule is true, WTH? <_>

[Adarain]

It would because ‹sch› is already taken so you wouldn't know whether it's /ʃ/ or /ʃt͡ɕ/.

[Prinsessa]

Oh, right.

Could've been stch.

[Adarain]

Or, you know, stg, as in the other dialects. Which actually looks cool :P (but I’ve started to like the hyphen. it’s unique and it’s a pretty rare sequence anyway)

[GrandPiano]

Middle English had <ea> for /ɛː/, <oa> for /ɔː/, and either <ȝ> or <gh> for /x~ç/ (<ȝ> (yogh) was generally used in Early Middle English for /x/ and /j/, with the exact usage depending on the writer; in Late Middle English, it was eventually replaced by <gh> and (I think) <y> - according to Wikipedia, one theory for why <gh> was used for /x/ is that before it disappeared, it was partially or completely voiced to /ɣx/ or /ɣ/).

Using silent <e> for long vowels was also eventually a thing in Middle English: In Early Middle English, all short vowels were lengthened (short /o/ and /e/ were also lowered to /ɔː/ and /ɛː/), followed by the deletion of word-final /ə/. The <e> that represented the deleted schwas was still written, and people eventually started to use it to indicate vowel length even when it was etymologically incorrect ("life", for example, comes from the Old English word līf). Because <o-e> and <e-a> represented /ɔː/ and /ɛː/, /oː/ and /eː/ were usually written <oo> and <ee> - their being the only doubled vowels was another orthographic quirk.

Old English used <g> for both /g/ and /j/ - /j/ usually occurred next to front vowels, and /g/ usually occurred next to back vowels, so it was usually easy to tell which one it was. IIRC this is a holdover from when Old English was written with futhorc runes, where the equivalent rune was also used for both /g/ and /j/, which in turn is a holdover from the Elder Futhark, the runic writing system that was used to write Proto-Germanic; the Old English /g/ and /j/ phonemes both come from the Proto-Germanic /g/, which in its development into Old English was palatalized to [j] when adjacent to front vowels. (Old English also had a similar situation with <c> being used for both /k/ and /t͡ʃ/)

Wow, that was a lot more than I initially intended to write.

[All4Ɇn]

Malagasy uses <i> and <y> but <y> only appears at the end of a word while <i> only appears elsewhere. Also <o> is used for /u/, despite <u> not being used and /o/ occurring in some dialectics.

[GrandPiano]

Malagasy uses <i> and <y> but <y> only appears at the end of a word while <i> only appears elsewhere.

That's kind of similar to what English and Spanish do with diphthongs/digraphs ending in <y> or <i> - <y> is used at the end of a word, and <i> is used before a consonant. Compare English may with English main, or Spanish hay with Spanish aire. English does a similar thing with digraphs ending in <w~u>: Compare mow with mountain. Of course, Spanish does this consistently, while English only does it as a general rule (exceptions in English include lawn and maybe).

[thetha]

mow and mountain have different vowel qualities so that's a bad example.

[loglorn]

mow and mountain have different vowel qualities so that's a bad example.

And... erm... what would the difference be?

[zyma]

For me, the vowel in "mow" is /oʊ̯/, while the first vowel in "mountain" is /aʊ̯/.

Edit: Unless you meant "why does it matter if they have different vowels" instead of "what are the two different vowels".

[cntrational]

I would say the sound that is written <tsch> is phonemic in German as in <Quatsch>, although it doesn't occur word initially that often. You are right about the voiced affricate and fricative though.

Late response, haven't checked the whole thread, but /tʃ/ is not phonemic in native German, it's a cluster. No native German word begins with it, unlike /ts/ and /pf/ (which are phonemic), due to the prohibition against stop-fricative clusters.

It is semi-phonemic in loanwords into German, and many dialects will simplify them anyway -- Chip [tʃɪps ~ ʃɪps] (Other stop-fractive clusters like /ps/ occur in loans as well, of course)

[cntrational]

Malagasy uses <i> and <y> but <y> only appears at the end of a word while <i> only appears elsewhere. Also <o> is used for /u/, despite <u> not being used and /o/ occurring in some dialectics.

The <i> and <y> thing is because final /i/ become [ʲ]. "Malagasy" is /malagasi/ phonemically, but [malagasʲ] phonetically.

[thetha]

Edit: Unless you meant "why does it matter if they have different vowels" instead of "what are the two different vowels".

That would be a silly question to ask, because it makes total sense that if mow and mountain are spelled differently and have different vowels, it may just be that the spelling difference is representative of the phonetic difference.

[All4Ɇn]

Malagasy uses <i> and <y> but <y> only appears at the end of a word while <i> only appears elsewhere. Also <o> is used for /u/, despite <u> not being used and /o/ occurring in some dialectics.

The <i> and <y> thing is because final /i/ become [ʲ]. "Malagasy" is /malagasi/ phonemically, but [malagasʲ] phonetically.

It's pronounced as in monosyllabic words though

[sangi39]

I assume GrandPiano's mow vs. mountain example was supposed to represent a point which would have been made better as cow vs. mountain...

[Dormouse559]

Or, to keep things as similar as possible, "cow" vs. "count".

[Birdlang]

And Standard Italian: cesare 'caesar', cessare 'to stop'.

But hey, look at Polish: <rz ~ ż> /ʐ/, <ć~ci> /t͡ɕ/, <ś~si> /ɕ/, <ź~zi> /d͡ʑ/, <ł> /w/

The rz and ł are not strange, they derive from a fricative trill and a velarized l. Also, in Slavic languages, the acute accent tends to be used a lot for fronted consonants (as in dental to alveolopalatal) and ż isn't strange when you find out that some Naga languages have weirder orthographies.

[Birdlang]

Is there any languages that any of you think have strange diacritic usage?

[sangi39]

Or, to keep things as similar as possible, "cow" vs. "count".

Interesting point, I was disappointed that "countain" wasn't a word when making that post. I can't believe I missed "count"

[Dormouse559]

To tell the truth, I couldn't think of a good alternative to "mow mountain" until you mentioned "cow".