Mastodawn

Yoïn van Spijk 6d ago

2/ ... consecutive dotless ı's looked a lot like the letter u. A Middle Dutch word such as 'dııc' could be mistaken for 'duc'.

That's why the second ı was lengthened to ȷ: 'dıȷc'.

It originally represented the long ee sound as in English 'freeze': [iː].

However, in the 14th century, ... 2/

Yoïn van Spijk

3/ ... it started to become a diphthong in certain regions, initially close to what you hear in Cockney 'me': [ɪj].

Later, it became similar to English ay in 'may'.

In certain regions in The Netherlands and Flanders, it eventually became the diphthong heard in 'my'.

Nowadays, ij is ... 3/

Yoïn van Spijk 6d ago

4/ ... considered a digraph.

Some even insist it's one single letter (and they can be very vocal about it).

At any rate, ij is always capitalised as a whole: 'ijs' becomes 'IJs' if it's the first word of a sentence.

On signs like the one below, both letters are often put in the same box.

Agnieszka R. Turczyńska 6d ago

@yvanspijk A curiosity. Close to me is a town called Bergeijk. And there is an old plaque with the name spelled as Bergeÿk.

MidgePhoto 5d ago

@agturcz @yvanspijk
Whereupon in a sort of coming round* again, they look rather like a U.

* Not merely a U-turn, alas.

Arne Bleijs 5d ago

@agturcz @yvanspijk
I'm also curious about 'eij'.
I know from genealogic research that my 17th century ancestors signed with 'Bleijs', but that a priest misspelled their last name as 'Blees' in a Baptism book. It gives a clue about pronunciation, I think.
However: I always thought a single 'i' itself was used for lengthening a vowel, just as in Yoïns' example 'diic'. So why is my last name 'Bleijs', and not 'Bleis'?

@ableijs @agturcz
Eij was a fancy way of writing ei. In those centuries, you'd also see ooij, aaij, uij - which isn't that weird, since we still write auw, ouw, eeuw with two letters representing the /w/ sound.

The pronunciation depends on the etymology of the name and the region where it was used.

Arne Bleijs 5d ago

@yvanspijk @agturcz
Thnx, that explains it.

Denis Moyogo Jacquerye 5d ago

@ableijs @yvanspijk @agturcz If I read or remember correctly, in the Dutch spelling wars, some used j for a palatal glide and others with a dipthong/long vowel. I guess that’s why there are spellings like Meijjer with both.

beka valentine 5d ago

@yvanspijk sluteru 🤔

trusty falxter 🧠5d ago

@beka_valentine @yvanspijk Sluterij, probably another word for sloppiness or a special kind of etablissement. 😜

Liminal witch 🧙‍♀️ Sarah 5d ago

@yvanspijk if 'ch' is considered one letter is some languages, 'ij' should be considered as one letter as well

@xgebi In what languages is ch considered one letter?

Irina 5d ago

@yvanspijk @xgebi Welsh and Breton, at least. Not sure about others.

@irina @xgebi I see. I'm afraid the people who decided so are mixing up letters and digraphs - and perhaps even sounds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_initial_mutations

Colm 5d ago

@yvanspijk @irina @xgebi Irish has two special cases here; the *séimhiú* (“h” after a consonant) and the *urú* (initial consonant added to a word to soften the first sound). They are *typographically* separate letters (although the *séimhiú* was formerly written as a dot - *buailte* - over the letter) but not semantically distinct. It would feel weird to write the *séimhiú* or *urú* separately from its modified letter (eg: vertically).

Irish initial mutations - Wikipedia

https://www.bilingualbalance.com/spanish-alphabet-changes/

Brad Rubenstein “

” [OLD ACCOUNT]5d ago

@yvanspijk @irina @xgebi

In Spain, ch was officially a single letter until 2010, when the Real Academia Española decided it was a digraph.

So the dictionary order went from:

cielo -> comida -> chocolate

cielo -> chocolate -> comida

Spanish Alphabet Changes: What Parents Should Know

Information about the Spanish alphabet and its changes over the years, plus a free printable chart for parents/teachers.

Bilingual Balance

mattg 5d ago

@BradRubenstein @yvanspijk @irina @xgebi they wouldn't ever have capitalized it CHocolate tho right? I feel like I would remember having seen capital CH something but maybe it didn't occur to me to notice.

Liminal witch 🧙‍♀️ Sarah 5d ago

@irina @yvanspijk also Czech and Slovak

Transcripsi

@irina In Spanish, ch and ll used to be considered as separate letters (e.g. when looking up in a dictionary a, b, c, ch, d...), but not anymore https://www.rae.es/ortograf%c3%ada/letras-y-d%C3%ADgrafos-el-estatus-de-ch-y-ll#5.4.1.1 @yvanspijk @xgebi

𝑀𝒶𝒿𝒶 𝒜𝒷𝓇𝒶𝓂𝓈𝓀𝒾-𝒦𝓇𝑜𝓃𝑒𝓃𝒷𝑒𝓇𝑔 ☮️5d ago

@irina @yvanspijk @xgebi

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrabble_letter_distributions for the treatment of multigraphs in Scrabble, including Welsh and Breton.

Scrabble letter distributions - Wikipedia

@yvanspijk
It's "one sound" (not exactly "one letter") in German too. Similar to "sh" in English (but softer more like the y in "yoink". "sch" is the German "sh")
@xgebi

@the_moep @xgebi
Yes, that's the point: one sound is a concept that very different from one letter.

@yvanspijk
Sure, but what would be the definition of "one letter that consists of two letters" be? That none of the individual letters are used for other sounds in that language? That's the only one I can think of and it's at least partially true for "ch" in German as "c" is basically only used in combination with other consonants to form unique sounds, namely "ch", "sch" and "ck".
@xgebi

@the_moep @xgebi 'One letter that consists of two letters' is the definition of a ligature. It's how the German Eszett arose: ẞ comes from ſʒ (older forms of s and z), as well as the w, which is a double v/u. Since ch isn't a ligature, it couldn't be considered one letter.

@yvanspijk
Well apparently ch and ck ligatures exist in some typefaces so that definition would still fit.
@xgebi

@yvanspijk @the_moep @xgebi In a Dutch crossword puzzle, IJ goes in a single square. PRIJS is 4 letters (in a crossword at least 😀).

GJ Groothedde 🇪🇺5d ago

@mkoek
In a Flemish crossword puzzle, it'd be five letters. Likewise, Dutch Scrabble sets have (or used to have) a "letter" ij, whereas Flemish Scrabble sets did not.
@yvanspijk @the_moep @xgebi

@Eetschrijver
I'm pretty sure most Gorman cross words even splitt ä/ü/ö but I don't think ß (not too sure on that one, might depend on how the cross word works out but technically we didn't have an uppercase ß until a couple years ago so writing it as sz would've made more sense than writing ae?) so this doesn't really seem to help with categorizing them 😅
@mkoek @yvanspijk @xgebi

@the_moep @Eetschrijver @yvanspijk @xgebi I know, I just like to add to the confusion here 😀

Kerstin 5d ago

@the_moep @Eetschrijver @mkoek @yvanspijk @xgebi
As far as I remenber, in german crosswords "ß" is mostly written "ss", so "gross" instead of "groß". Same happened to some words with "ß" after the last reform, its now "dass" instead of "daß".

@Archiv Right, not sure why I thought it was written as sz 🤔
I guess that's why I didn't make the connection of how it was usually written in cross words as I didn't have the ss in mind and unfortunately googling for it lead to zero usable information about how German cross words worked and I didn't want to bother my grandma about it.

@Eetschrijver @yvanspijk @the_moep @xgebi silly Belgians ;)

@mkoek @yvanspijk @the_moep @xgebi

Jennifer Moore 😷5d ago

Memory unlocked!

"ij met puntjes"

"y zonder puntjes"

In handwriting they were both the same shape apart from the dots!

(I was at school in Leiden for a couple of years as a kid, that's where I learnt my joined-up handwriting)

@unchartedworlds @yvanspijk @the_moep @xgebi Correct. 🙂 Y/y is quite rare though (called 'griekse ij' (greek ij) or i-grêque like the French)

Bee (a dork)5d ago

@the_moep @yvanspijk @xgebi it's not entirely formalized or consistent across languages, but the constituent letters not having other uses is not a part of it at all. when something is given "letter" status, it is listed io the alphabet, which changes alphabetical ordering, and in some languages it will have special typographical rules as well (dutch's IJ capitalizing together was mentioned elsewhere in this thread). there's a lot of languages that count some modified letters as distinct letters of their alphabets, rather than as just modified forms of the base letters, and it's the same with them as with digraphs, in that it changes alphabetical ordering

Sarah dreams of beans 4d ago

@someonetellmetosleep @the_moep @yvanspijk @xgebi Multigraphs are fairly common in Indigenous language alphabets here in BC. Like you say, the main impact is on sorting and sometimes capitalization. I am always interested to hear about the reasons for those alphabet choices-- in BC the writing systems are generally pretty new and have often been developed in the context of language revitalization.

A few examples:

https://www.firstvoices.com/kwakwala/alphabet

https://www.firstvoices.com/halqemeylem/alphabet

https://www.firstvoices.com/dakelh-southern-carrier/alphabet

FirstVoices.com

Check this out on FirstVoices: Indigenous Language Revitalization Platform

Honza Javorek 5d ago

@yvanspijk @xgebi In Czech ch is a standalone letter in our alphabet, kids learn to write Ch/ch in schools as a separate letter, and it’s sorted after H, but in typesetting it’s just C and H. Capitalized it’s Ch, like in Chomutov or Chrudim (town names). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ch

Lauhaz Nasją 5d ago

@yvanspijk @xgebi Until relatively recently, the digraphs "ch" and "ll" were considered their own letters in Spanish and were sorted separately in dictionaries, but the Real Academia Española, the governing body that regulates the language, decided in 2010 not to consider them their own letters anymore. (They had also decided in 1994 not to sort them separately from "c" and "l" in dictionaries.)

Leen Kievit 5d ago

@yvanspijk I used to be firmly in the 'IJ is one letter' camp, now I just consider it both a single and 2 letters, similar to how light can be interpreted as both particles and waves. Still think Dutch Wordle treats it wrongly as 2 though, as puzzles usually reserve one box for it.

Rob van Kan 5d ago

@yvanspijk Here's a special ij key on my prewar Dutch typewriter, shared with the equally Dutch florin sign.

@edgeofeurope Wauw, de Nederlandse toets der Nederlandse toetsen!

KnuppelBeer 🐻5d ago

@yvanspijk ofwel, de Nederlandste toets

@edgeofeurope

Derick Rethans 5d ago

@knuppelbeer @yvanspijk @edgeofeurope My typewriter in the early 80s also had this as a letter. / Mijn schrijfmachine in de vroege 80er jaren had het ook als een special toets.

Unicode also still considers it as a single letter for the Dutch locale, and sorts ij and íj' between ï and j: https://unicode.org/cldr/charts/42/summary/nl.html

Locale Data Summary for Dutch [nl]

Bart Groeneveld 5d ago

@derickr @knuppelbeer @yvanspijk @edgeofeurope Die hele tabel achter die link, wow. 🤯

Derick Rethans 5d ago

@bartavi @knuppelbeer @yvanspijk @edgeofeurope Haha, yes. Locales are wild.

Head·word /ˈhedˌwɜː(ɹ)d/ n.5d ago

@yvanspijk @edgeofeurope

The only thing that could make it more Dutch would be the addition of the ‘krul’. (But I suppose no typewriters had that)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flourish_of_approval?wprov=sfla1

Flourish of approval - Wikipedia

Hein Ragas 5d ago

@edgeofeurope @yvanspijk On keyboards for Monotype type-setting machines, there were keys for every ligature, including ff, fl, fi, ffl, ffi etcetera.
Some fonts have these ligatures automatically, but when they were typeset with lead, they had to be specially selected.

pizzaroquette 5d ago

@edgeofeurope @yvanspijk (Join the hashtag: #dutchIJ !)

Jan v/d Broek 5d ago

@edgeofeurope @yvanspijk My Rheinmetall (early 60's) also has one.

Florine 5d ago

@yvanspijk
My surname has an ij in it. My father told me an American once asked him about this "y with an umlaut". 🤔

de marin 5d ago

@yvanspijk I am also firmly in the „it’s one letter!“ camp. I do feel like no one (at least in Frisia) is consistent, I have documents with my last name (which is yours, but Frisian lol) spelled like Spijk, Spyk, Speik and Spiek.

Packages in Germany do sometimes still have „Sp<?>k“ on it 🙃

SnowyCA

@yvanspijk Very interesting. Thanks for sharing this. : )

StarkRG 5d ago

@yvanspijk Oh no, they've come right back around to them looking like a U...

toybox [fr]5d ago

@yvanspijk Isn't ij one tile in Scrabble? That would be the Definitive and Extremely Scientific proof that it is, indeed, one letter.