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orion-list Writing systems





To Rochelle Altman:   

> >    That is, an ancient reader would see letters slightly apart and
> >    stretch out the sound, see letters jammed together and say the
> >    sounds quickly together, etc.
> 
> Definitely, and we have numerous authors who attest to this.... in fact,
> the name of my book, _Absent Voices_, is a paraphrase of a comment made
> by Isidore of Seville as to how writing literally permits one to *hear*
> the 'voice of the absent'. It is a matter of training. Do not forget that
> 
Could you give some specific reference to an ancient author who attests 
to the marking of phonological phenomenae by varying the spacing 
between alphabetic letters within single words?  

>     (3) Do any of the books in your bibliography make the argument that
>     scribal spacing/jamming of letters in some other language are
>     routinely reflecting pronounciation phenomenae?
> 
> No. There are precisely five people who have examined the meaning of
> the clumping and spacing at any length: Robert Stevick, Andre Crepin,
> and Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe in Anglo-Saxon studies; Columba Kelly, in
> Gregorian Semiology, and myself. (In AS studies, after reading my material
> 
Have any of these published an article in a journal on this phenomenon?
Are you quite certain that they are claiming slight variabilities in
horizontal spacings between letters within words are phonologically
significant?    

Greg Doudna
Copenhagen 

For private reply, e-mail to Greg Doudna <gd@teol.ku.dk>
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