LINGUIST List 6.1342

Mon Oct 2 1995

Disc: Languages With No Between-word Delimiters

Editor for this issue: Ljuba Veselinova <lveselinemunix.emich.edu>

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  • Christopher Upward, Subject: 6.1264, Sum: Languages With No Between-word Delimiters

    Message 1: Subject: 6.1264, Sum: Languages With No Between-word Delimiters

     Date: Mon, 25 Sep 1995 16:19:50 Subject: 6.1264, Sum: Languages With No Between-word Delimiters
    From: Christopher Upward <c.upwardaston.ac.uk>
    Subject: Subject: 6.1264, Sum: Languages With No Between-word Delimiters


    Some rather vague historical comments - I don't have references to hand.

    This message uses Cut Spellng - for an outline of the system, see http://www.les.aston.ac.ak/cutspelng.html

    I undrstand that th irish wer th orijnl inventrs of word-space delimitrs, using them for latn, perhaps because it was a foren languaj for them, and hence too dificlt to read in its norml unspaced script. Th irish then pasd th trik on to th northumbrians, ho bilt it into ther english in th 7th century. English was thus posbly th first vernaculr to insert spaces between words. Howevr, th anglo-saxns wer ofn unsure wher one word endd and th next began, so ther was a lot of variation (as ther stil is today - do we rite 'on to' or 'onto'?).

    Latn without word-spaces was of corse dificlt to read, and fluent silent readng was most unusul. Ther is mor than one story about ho first tryd to read silently: one story has it that Julius Caesar used to read militry dispachs silently, so that militry secrets wudnt be overherd. Anothr story has it that one of th mor importnt saints (Jerome? Augustine of Hippo? - I forget wich) astonishd his felo eclesiastics by readng silently - an unprecedentd feat.

    Altho latn didnt insert spaces between words, it is not entirely tru to say that words wer nevr delimitd: th betr class of roman inscriptions (eg, Trajans Colum) used mid-line dots between words. But as with Old English, th conventions as to wher th word boundris fel wer not yet fixd: wer 'prefixs' to be red as joind to or seprat from th foloing morfeme?

    As far as I no, no languaj used word-spaces befor irish-latn. Certnly ancient greek didnt, and so presumebly its semitic precursrs didnt eithr.

    I gess ther is som controvrsy about how 'natrl' word-boundris ar. I hav herd that ilitrat amazonian indians ar capabl of distinguishng words. But many word boundris ar merely matrs of ritn convention (wy 'upon', not 'up on'? wy 'up to', not 'upto'? wy 'fireman', 'fire-alarm', 'fire insurance'?) and hence to som degree arbitry. Altho modrn jermn is famus for formng long compound words, it too somtimes has problms deciding wen two morfemes shud be compoundd or not: shud one rite 'Rad fahren' (= to weel ride - ie, to ride a bicycl) or 'radfahren' (= to weelride - ie, to rideabicycl). French also has uncertntis on this point, but both french and jermn ar tryng to rationlize som of ther most notorius uncertntis in recent spelng reform proposals.

    Th botm line of word-spacing no dout has to do with 'th gramr of lejbility'.

    I beleve ethiopian had a uniqe word-sepration markr, but I dont hav my infrmation on it to hand.

    Christopher UPWARD Aston University 0121-359 3611 Fax 0121-359 6153 Home address and telephone 61 Valentine Road Birmingham B14 7AJ tel. 021-444 2837