marnanel: (Default)
[personal profile] marnanel
I'm typesetting Alice in an interlinear Shavian edition. Here's the first chapter; there's more to come, obviously. Your feedback is greatly valued.

The only problem I can foresee is this exchange:
“I’m a poor man, your Majesty,” the Hatter began, in a trembling voice, “--and I hadn’t begun my tea—not above a week or so—and what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin—and the twinkling of the tea——”

“The twinkling of what?” said the King.

“It began with the tea,” the Hatter replied.

“Of course twinkling begins with a T!” said the King sharply. “Do you take me for a dunce? Go on!”
The word twinkling (𐑑𐑢𐑦𐑙𐑒𐑤𐑦𐑙) begins with the Shavian letter 𐑑, which is usually known as "tot". The names given in Unicode and used canonically these days were originally only examples (thanks, [personal profile] pne) given in the card which came with Androcles. The joke clearly doesn't work if the Hatter says, "the twinkling of the tot".

However, in Shaw Script, that letter was known as "tea". I may add a footnote to this effect. If you have other solutions, I'd like to hear them.

Update: [personal profile] pne suggests that Shavian and italics don't mix well, and suggests some alternatives.

Date: 2009-09-22 02:21 pm (UTC)
pne: A picture of a plush toy, halfway between a duck and a platypus, with a green body and a yellow bill and feet. (Default)
From: [personal profile] pne
were originally only examples

You'll note that the card *does* say "Beneath each letter is its full name".

Date: 2009-09-22 02:27 pm (UTC)
pne: A picture of a plush toy, halfway between a duck and a platypus, with a green body and a yellow bill and feet. (Default)
From: [personal profile] pne
I'm not sure whether italics work so well in Shavian.

That's a rather Latin-alphabet thing, in fact; I don't think italics are even much used in, say, Greek, whose letters are otherwise superficially fairly similar.

I'd suggest using a different Shavian typeface instead of italics and boldface, or using i n c r e a s e d   l e t t e r s p a c i n g (which German uses for emphasis, for example), or underlining, or some other device, rather than using italics. (Especially, rather than using oblique/slanted text as poor man's italics.)

As for the T/tea thing, I'd go for a footnote explaining that in the Latin orthography which the King was familiar with, the word "twinkling" begins with a letter which is called "tee" in that script. (Sort of like explaining an alphabet-based joke in another language.)
Edited Date: 2009-09-22 02:27 pm (UTC)

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