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From: mcv@inter.NL.net (Miguel Carrasquer)
Subject: Re: English alphabet history?
Message-ID: <Cy2Lo0.4EG@inter.NL.net>
Organization: NLnet
References: <japixleyCxypzo.GA7@netcom.com> <3894g6$bvv@mcmail.cis.McMaster.CA>
Date: Sat, 22 Oct 1994 10:40:47 GMT
Lines: 34

In article <3894g6$bvv@mcmail.cis.McMaster.CA>,
Ken Moyle <moylek@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca> wrote:
>In article <japixleyCxypzo.GA7@netcom.com>,
>Jonathan Pixley <japixley@netcom.com> wrote:
>>Now for my real question.  In the German alphabet, there is the umlaut.  
>>The French have a cedilla, accent grave, accent aigu and the vowels with 
>>the funny hat that I can't remember what are called.  Just going from 
>>this I'd guess we got our alphabet from the Germans after they had been 
>>Romanticized and not from the French.  Is this the case?  Why or why not?
>
>	Both French and English use a modified Roman alphabet, common to
>most of the countries in Western Europe.  The diacritics used by the
>French (la cedille, le circonflex, l'accent grave, l'accent aigu) were,
>for the most part, introduced in the 16th century; I don't know when
>German began using such marks. In any event, the English alphabet as we 
>know it predates the French use of diacritical marks.
>

Many diacritic marks are derived from digraphs used in medieval
handwriting.  The c-cedilla used to be "cz", with the "z" written
underneath the "c".  The circonflex used to be a small "s" written
above the vowel (e.g. castellum > chastel > cha^teau).  Grave and
aigu probably have a different origin (my guess would be they were
introduced by grammarians to distinguish [e] and [E], the signs
themselves being taken from Greek orthography).
The German umlaut (diaeresis) likewise originiates from an "e"
written above the vowel.  Spanish n-tilde comes from "nn", with
one "n" written above the other (I'd guess the second one over the
first :-).

-- 
Miguel Carrasquer         ____________________  ~~~
Amsterdam                [                  ||]~  
mcv@inter.NL.net         ce .sig n'est pas une .cig 
