Re: Incorrect names for Arabic letters

From: Anto'nio Martins-Tuva'lkin (antonio@tuvalkin.web.pt)
Date: Tue Sep 06 2005 - 20:08:55 CDT

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    On 2005.03.19, 23:42, Philippe VERDY <verdy_p@wanadoo.fr> wrote:

    > not for the whole modern English language that also contains non ASCII
    > letters: some wellknown words with accents,

    That is not English: A cafe or a fete or even a facade are the same with
    or without their "ornaments". OTOH minnimally phonematic orthographies do
    *need* their diacriticals to avoid misreadings or even misunderstandings.

    > international English...

    And this would be...?

    > (May be this works for Swahili, or Bahasa Melayu, or Bahasa Indonesia,
    <...>
    > may be I'm wrong and they also exist, also because of imported words
    > from Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French... or even with Latin
    > transcriptions of Arabic words)

    You're not wrong. Theose loan words are assimilated to the orthography of
    each language. It works this way in most languages, except apparently in
    English (and only quite recently, I'd say). In Tetun (off. nat. language
    in East Timor), the word "kalsa" (pants) comes from portuguese "calça" and
    is pronounced much the same way -- but it is spelling follows Tetun's
    orthographic standard.

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