Re: Euwww, English Again! :-)

[Stephanie Malone Thorson <smt2@st-andrews.ac.uk>]

Alanna writes:

> >Clearly so.  I recall one Linguistics person mentioning that, technically,
> >Welsh has more vowels than English.
> >
> >	Tibor
> >
> The way _I_ heard it, the Welsh used to have vowels, but the !*&^%$#@
> English stole them.

Actually, m'lady, I think it was the *Irish*  who stole the Welsh 
vowels.  Take a look at a sentence in Gaelic sometime - you will see that 
they have an overabundance of the things!  Those Sassanach have many 
faults, but I don't think you can blame them for that.

This is actually possible - the Irish did have colonies in Wales during 
part of the Middle Ages - a perfect front for vowel-rustling.

I have also heard tell of a long-forgotten treaty between the French and 
Germans, in which all the French *consonants* were ceded to the Germans 
over a period of years, but this may be apocrypha.

(In the cold dry technical sense, of course, Tibor is right - there are 
vowels in Welsh which don't look like it to the rest of us - W, for example)

In service (and tongue in cheek),
Alianora
*****************************************************************************
Stephanie M. Thorson			*  SCA: Lady Alianora Munro
University of St Andrews		*  
St Andrews, Scotland			*  Clan White Wing
email smt2@st-andrews.ac.uk		*  Tarkhan, Khanate Red Lion
*****************************************************************************

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