{"id":2676,"date":"2012-08-29T22:46:24","date_gmt":"2012-08-29T21:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.widmann.org.uk\/?p=2676"},"modified":"2026-08-20T09:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T07:42:08","slug":"%d1%82%d0%b2%d0%b5%d1%80%d0%b4%d1%8b%d0%b9-%d1%81-%d1%82%d0%b2%d0%b5%d1%80%d0%b4%d1%8b%d0%bc-%d0%b8-%d0%bc%d1%8f%d0%b3%d0%ba%d0%b8%d0%b9-%d1%81-%d0%bc%d1%8f%d0%b3%d0%ba%d0%b8%d0%bc-swapping-the-ort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/%d1%82%d0%b2%d0%b5%d1%80%d0%b4%d1%8b%d0%b9-%d1%81-%d1%82%d0%b2%d0%b5%d1%80%d0%b4%d1%8b%d0%bc-%d0%b8-%d0%bc%d1%8f%d0%b3%d0%ba%d0%b8%d0%b9-%d1%81-%d0%bc%d1%8f%d0%b3%d0%ba%d0%b8%d0%bc-swapping-the-ort\/","title":{"rendered":"\u0422\u0432\u0435\u0440\u0434\u044b\u0439 \u0441 \u0442\u0432\u0435\u0440\u0434\u044b\u043c \u0438 \u043c\u044f\u0433\u043a\u0438\u0439 \u0441 \u043c\u044f\u0433\u043a\u0438\u043c — swapping the orthographies for Gaelic and Russian"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n
\nBlackhouse<\/a>
\nOriginally uploaded by IrenicRhonda<\/a>
\n<\/span>\n<\/div>\n

Scottish Gaelic has a lot in common with Russian on a phonological level: Most consonants have two variants: a plain (or perhaps somewhat velarised) one and a palatalised one.<\/p>\n

However, their orthographies handle this situation in different ways: In Gaelic, any consonant is palatalised (\u201cslender\u201d) if it is next to \u2018e\u2019 or \u2018i\u2019, and it\u2019s plain (\u201cbroad\u201d) otherwise (in Gaelic, this is expressed as \u201ccaol ri caol is leathann ri leathann\u201d, which means \u201cbroad with broad and slender with slender\u201d). In Russian, a consonant is palatalised (\u201csoft\u201d) if followed by \u2018\u0435\u2019 (\u2018ye\u2019), \u2018\u0438\u2019 (\u2018i\u2019), \u2018\u044f\u2019 (\u2018ya\u2019), \u2018\u044e\u2019 (\u2018yu\u2019), or \u2018\u044c\u2019 (the \u201csoft sign\u201d).<\/p>\n

This means that if we look at a word with consists of a slender\/soft consonant, a back vowel and another slender\/soft consonant, Gaelic will insert extra front vowels (e.g., ci\u00f9il <\/em>\/k\u02b2u\u02d0l\u02b2\/ \u201cof music\u201d), while Russian will use one of the vowels listed above and a soft sign at the end (e.g., \u043f\u044f\u0442\u044c <\/em>\/p\u02b2at\u02b2\/ \u201cfive\u201d).<\/p>\n

Now, there\u2019s nothing preventing Gaelic from using the Russian system, or Russian from using the Gaelic one (\u201c\u0442\u0432\u0435\u0440\u0434\u044b\u0439 \u0441 \u0442\u0432\u0435\u0440\u0434\u044b\u043c \u0438 \u043c\u044f\u0433\u043a\u0438\u0439 \u0441 \u043c\u044f\u0433\u043a\u0438\u043c\u201d). That is, the Gaelic word above could in theory be written as \u043a\u044e\u043b\u044c<\/em>, and the Russian one as piait<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure there are many Gaelic speakers who would like to switch to Cyrillic, but in theory this Gaelic-style orthography for Russian could replace the current transliteration schemes \u2014 piait <\/em>arguably looks neater that pjat\u2019<\/em>, which is how it\u2019s normally handled at the moment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blackhouse Originally uploaded by IrenicRhonda Scottish Gaelic has a lot in common with Russian on a phonological level: Most consonants have two variants: a plain (or perhaps somewhat velarised) one and a palatalised one. However, their orthographies handle this situation in different ways: In Gaelic, any consonant is palatalised (\u201cslender\u201d) if it is next to \u2018e\u2019 or \u2018i\u2019, and it\u2019s plain (\u201cbroad\u201d) otherwise (in Gaelic, this is expressed as \u201ccaol ri caol is leathann ri leathann\u201d, which means \u201cbroad with broad and slender with slender\u201d). In Russian, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[159,164,117,136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-en","category-gd","category-linguistics","category-ru"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2676"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13785,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676\/revisions\/13785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}