View Message

This is a reply within a larger thread: view the whole thread

[Opinions] Completely in favour (m)
in reply to a message by ash
But then I've made a point of getting my head round the Irish Gaelic spelling system, so I can cope with Irish personal and place-names without a pronunciation guide.A lot of people don't seem to realise that it's internally consistent, and a lot more so than English - it's just that the spellings for sounds like /v/ are different. If you think about it, writing BH for a v-sound is no weirder than writing TH for a th-sound. They're both single consonants that happen to be written with two unrelated letters. English spelling is bizarre enough already that most people will have no problem assimilating a name that looks a little weird. I've never had any insoluble problems with mine (Myfanwy). English is common, but that's no reason to insist that names from all other origins need conform to its spelling norms (such as there are). Kre8yv spellings can be a pain, but names genuinely from another language are entitled to their native orthography.I'm not Irish, so far as I know, and Irish culture jingoism really has nothing to do with my views on this. I think it's more a reflexive defence of names as difficult as my own. I'd much rather correct the odd misspelt envelope than go through life as a phonetically-spelt Mivanweigh. I really would.
Archived Thread - replies disabled
vote up1

No replies