In article ,
Rusty Hinge 2 wrote:
The message
from Stewart Robert Hinsley contains these words:
In message , Rusty Hinge
2 writes

A Gaelic word, it means 'eagle', and is pronounced something like
'eeel-ugth'.

I've never been quite certain whether Gaelic orthography is even more
baroque that English, or whether it's just different.

It's certainly 'different'.

It's also (in the case of Scottish Gaelic) a modern invention, and
reflects the views of the inventors as much as anything. There
was no written tradition of consequence before 2-300 years ago.
That was not the case in Ireland, of course.

The rules are really quite rigid within the bounds of local dialect, and
various combinations of letters always (AFAIK) indicate the same sound -
none of this 'plough, enough, cough, dough' etc. as in English.

That is generally a sign of an artificial orthography. Natural ones
tend to have more inconsistencies.

One can speculate why English became as bizarre as it is, but the
Victorian dogmatism was only the culmination of a formalisation of
inchoate conventions. It was already half-formalised (and wildly
inconsistent) in Shakespeare's day.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.