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ArchivesRe: Reason for African American names using apostrophes?
in reply to a message by Cleveland Kent Evans
Thanks for that information. It's quite interesting to note that the occurance has only been around for the last 40 years or so. I, too, had thought of the Louisiana tie but being from the NE I thought there could be a different reason for the use in my area. It's curious that the US doesn't use diacritical marks more often as we are a nation of immigrants and the original names would have included them. I suppose in order to assimilate more easily many dropped the accent marks (voluntarily or not). It's a bit sad that with all our cultures and backgrounds we don't have a more diverse range of writing that is commonplace that would include these marks. The other option I see is the individual constantly correcting others to include them, or correct them on pronounciation that would have been obvious if the accent marks were used in the first place. Or as we see here, substituting another punctuation mark that exists incorrectly to achieve the desired effect. It's too bad.
By the way, how were you able to include them within your writing?
Thanks,
Tempestgirl
By the way, how were you able to include them within your writing?
Thanks,
Tempestgirl
2
Replies
Inserting accents and their uses in French and Spanish
It is not generally possible to reproduce such markings using a keyboard, but such symbols exist in most fonts nowadays. It is quite possible to insert them into e-mails or whatever else you may wish by copying and pasting them out of a word document. Simply insert the desired character into a word processing document and insert it where needed.
I often use this to insert accented characters or IPA symbols into postings, comments, and e-mails.
Here is a sample:
Voilà, j'ai une étoile dans ma poche! Il y a une château dans le forêt. Tu es une amie chère. L'île est très belle. Aïe!
These symbols are the grave (à), acute (é), and circumflex (î) accents and the diaeresis (ï). In French orthography, they serve varying functions.
The grave is mainly used to distinguish homographs, which are usually also homophones, but it also changes the pronuncation of the letter "e" from [ø] to [ɛ].
The acute is used only on the letter "e" to effect the pronunciation as [e].
The circumflex is used to denote that a silent letter, usually an "s", has been omitted from writing, sometimes changing the sound of "a" to [ɑ:], "e" to [ɛ:], or "o" to [o:], or lengthening the sounds of "i" and "u".
Lastly, a diaeresis is employed to indicate that a vowel (in French, usually an "i") is sounded separately rather than part of a vowel digraph, as in the interjections "aïe" and "aïlle", pronounced [ɑ:i] and [ɑ:ij], respectively. Both mean "ouch".
I hope that this has been helpful to you.
One final note, the acute is used to mark stress in Spanish when it does not fall upon the penult or to distinguish homographs, usually in monosyllables.
A Spanish diaeresis is only used upon the letter "u" to indicate that it is sounded prior to "e" or "i" following a written "g".
It is not generally possible to reproduce such markings using a keyboard, but such symbols exist in most fonts nowadays. It is quite possible to insert them into e-mails or whatever else you may wish by copying and pasting them out of a word document. Simply insert the desired character into a word processing document and insert it where needed.
I often use this to insert accented characters or IPA symbols into postings, comments, and e-mails.
Here is a sample:
Voilà, j'ai une étoile dans ma poche! Il y a une château dans le forêt. Tu es une amie chère. L'île est très belle. Aïe!
These symbols are the grave (à), acute (é), and circumflex (î) accents and the diaeresis (ï). In French orthography, they serve varying functions.
The grave is mainly used to distinguish homographs, which are usually also homophones, but it also changes the pronuncation of the letter "e" from [ø] to [ɛ].
The acute is used only on the letter "e" to effect the pronunciation as [e].
The circumflex is used to denote that a silent letter, usually an "s", has been omitted from writing, sometimes changing the sound of "a" to [ɑ:], "e" to [ɛ:], or "o" to [o:], or lengthening the sounds of "i" and "u".
Lastly, a diaeresis is employed to indicate that a vowel (in French, usually an "i") is sounded separately rather than part of a vowel digraph, as in the interjections "aïe" and "aïlle", pronounced [ɑ:i] and [ɑ:ij], respectively. Both mean "ouch".
I hope that this has been helpful to you.
One final note, the acute is used to mark stress in Spanish when it does not fall upon the penult or to distinguish homographs, usually in monosyllables.
A Spanish diaeresis is only used upon the letter "u" to indicate that it is sounded prior to "e" or "i" following a written "g".
1
un chateau, la foret! LOL
2
Re:
It's curious that the US doesn't use diacritical marks more often as we are a nation of immigrants and the original names would have included them.
What a luxury to have different languages with scripts that differ only in the tiny flagella like accents, cedillas, bars, and the occasional eszets. What good would it do to maintain them when a large number of immigrants don't get to keep their цs, жs, and ыs anyway? Or what about me try to explain the difference of aspirated and unaspirated retroflex and dental d to ears not attuned to such differences?
Seriously, though, is their any point in distinguishing between German u and ü without somehow marking the French u as French? And isn't accent a tiny issue when Jesus in the US does not usually have the English pronounciation, and it is difficult to know how to pronounce Angel in any given instance? Note that in these examples, as well as the introduction of u (of the recent Muriel thread variety) in the Norman period, we often do not extend the alphabet, instead given new values to old symbols in particular contexts. This often goes so far as to be virtually unidentifiable to people who are unfamiliar with the source: Tamil (or properly Tamizh) is most often transliterated using zh to stand for a retroflex kind of l instead of inventing an accent on l.
It's curious that the US doesn't use diacritical marks more often as we are a nation of immigrants and the original names would have included them.
What a luxury to have different languages with scripts that differ only in the tiny flagella like accents, cedillas, bars, and the occasional eszets. What good would it do to maintain them when a large number of immigrants don't get to keep their цs, жs, and ыs anyway? Or what about me try to explain the difference of aspirated and unaspirated retroflex and dental d to ears not attuned to such differences?
Seriously, though, is their any point in distinguishing between German u and ü without somehow marking the French u as French? And isn't accent a tiny issue when Jesus in the US does not usually have the English pronounciation, and it is difficult to know how to pronounce Angel in any given instance? Note that in these examples, as well as the introduction of u (of the recent Muriel thread variety) in the Norman period, we often do not extend the alphabet, instead given new values to old symbols in particular contexts. This often goes so far as to be virtually unidentifiable to people who are unfamiliar with the source: Tamil (or properly Tamizh) is most often transliterated using zh to stand for a retroflex kind of l instead of inventing an accent on l.
2
There's different ways to pronounce Angel?
1
"Angel" in English is AYN-jel. In Spanish it's AHN-hel. (Actually that second "h" is better written as "kh," like you're preparing to spit. It's a sound common in Semitic languages, and Spanish has it too, before "e" and "i.")
1
Apologize for the typos. I must be looking back fondly for my teenage years.
1
You can include diacrtical marks in a couple of different ways in most computer programs these days.
First, if you find an instance where the marks are included already, you can just use the copy function to get them into your own writing. That's what I did with ANDRÉ and INÈS; I simply copied them from the entries where they occur on this very site.
You can also use the ALT key in combination with certain number codes in order to create letters with the diacritical marks. I am not sure if this works on all computers, but the codes on the following site usually work for me:
http://www.starr.net/is/type/altnum.htm
:)
First, if you find an instance where the marks are included already, you can just use the copy function to get them into your own writing. That's what I did with ANDRÉ and INÈS; I simply copied them from the entries where they occur on this very site.
You can also use the ALT key in combination with certain number codes in order to create letters with the diacritical marks. I am not sure if this works on all computers, but the codes on the following site usually work for me:
http://www.starr.net/is/type/altnum.htm
:)
1