Sunday, September 27, 2020
French Spelling
Walter Savage Landor, "The Abbé Delille and Walter Landor," Imaginary Conversations, Vol. III (London: J.M. Dent & Co., 1909), pp. 268-314 (at 295, Landor speaking):
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And let me ask here in regard to your use of the alphabet, what man of what nation, ancient or modern, could imagine the existence of a people on the same globe with himself, who employ the letters e a u x to express a sound which he and all others would express by the single vowel o, and that furthermore oient should signify neither more nor less than another single vowel e? And what is your barbarity to the most beautiful of the liquids! In fils you disinherit it: in Versailles you pour two of them into a gargle. If there is a letter that ought to have more force and strength in it than any other, it is the letter x, which in fact is composed of two stout ones, k and s: yet you make nothing of it.
