[HN Gopher] The strangest letter of the alphabet: The rise and f...
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The strangest letter of the alphabet: The rise and fall of yogh
Author : penetralium
Score : 31 points
Date : 2025-10-02 21:34 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.deadlanguagesociety.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.deadlanguagesociety.com)
| o11c wrote:
| Yogh is indeed strange. Wynn is the most irritating loss though;
| couldn't we have at least kept the name rather than "double-yoo"?
| mminer237 wrote:
| That would be convenient. Microsoft would have had to rename
| the [?] key then lol.
| specproc wrote:
| The old English '' has visual similarities with the Georgian 'g',
| also our 'g'.
|
| We've two letters that are visually similar to yogh 'y': 'v' (an
| English 'v', or 'w' if you're Tbliseli), and 'p' (a hard 'p').
| Our 'gh' sound is 'g''.
| choult wrote:
| In the UK, yogh existed in Scotland a while longer than in
| England. You can observe it still in the name Menzies which is
| pronounced Ming-is there - the z in place of the yogh.
|
| In the last week, our most famous Menzies passed away -
| politician Sir "Ming" Campbell.
| jgtrosh wrote:
| That's /'mINGIs/,/'mINGgIs/ for anyone wondering
| samgutentag wrote:
| "English spelling has a reputation. And it's not a good one." -
| never have i ever agreed with anything more
|
| different hill, but one I would die on is: as the letter "c"
| should make the "ch" sound, the letter "c" serves no purpose not
| already handled by "s" or "k" otherwise
| arkensaw wrote:
| > It's full of silent letters, as in numb, knee, and honour. A
| given sound can be spelled in multiple ways (farm, laugh,
| photo), and many letters make multiple sounds (get, gist,
| mirage).
|
| that last one is hardly fair - gist and mirage are french
| words. might as well complain about the silent letters in
| rendezvous or faux pas.
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