Apostrophes (was Re: Exemplar Characters)

From: Chris Harvey (chris@languagegeek.com)
Date: Tue Nov 15 2005 - 12:15:31 CST

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    Ysgrifennodd Philippe Verdy <verdy_p@wanadoo.fr> ar y 15-11-2005 am 12:21:
    >> Why not also use the modifier U+02BC in Breton? As there is no
    >> correspondance between character and pronunciation, then the "glottal"
    >> aspect of U+02BC could be ignored. U+2019 could be reserved for
    >> punctuation purposes only.
    >
    > I and Michel said that Breton uses the same set of characters as French.
    > French does not have any glottal stop or modifier letter. It only has an
    > apostrophe (used for contractions). So Breton uses the apostrophe, even
    > if it's not a grammatical contraction. The decision was made about 30
    > years ago, and used consistently in many books and dictionnaries !
    > French does really use a lot the U+2019 apostrophe-quote, so does Breton.

    I am aware of this. This is why I mentioned in the same email, “And if the
    argument in favour for use of U+2019 in Breton is based on convention,
    then all languages ought to be using U+2019 even for their glottal
    stops...”

     From Michael Everson
    >> any more than there is a rule about the phonetic value of <c> in any
    >> particular language.

    If there is no phonetic values attached to characters, then U+02BC need
    not be a glottal stop.

    What I’d like to know is, what’s the usage difference between U+02BC and
    U+2019? If a language like Breton (for reasons of convention or otherwise)
    is using U+2019 in its orthography as a trigraph <c’h>, then in this case
    the apostrophe isn’t punctuation. If Mohawk is using an apostrophe in its
    orthography (regardless of its pronunciation) it might as well also use
    U+2019. Then, what is the use at all for U+02BC, IPA only perhaps?

    Chris

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