Re: Transcriptions of "Unicode"

From: Michael Everson (everson@egt.ie)
Date: Mon Jan 15 2001 - 05:48:54 EST


Ar 07:28 -0800 2001-01-12, scr’obh Mark Davis:

>According to the references I have, the prefix "uni" is directly from
>Latin while the word "code" is through French. The Indo-European would
>have been *oi-no-kau-do ("give one strike"): *kau apparently being related
>to such English words as: hew, haggle, hoe, hag, hay, hack, caudad,
>caudal, caudate, caudex, coda, codex, codicil, coward, incus, and KovaÄ
>(personal name: 'smith'). I will leave the exact derivations to the
>exegetes, but I like the association with "haggle" myself.

I am not in the presence of my dictionaries (being on a train from Oxford
to Slough where I am about to meet Maurice Bauhahn and John Okell to
discuss the sorting order of Khmer and Myanmar over lunch) but I believe
also related to this root *kau may be the Irish "gabhann" 'smith', found in
the name "Mac Gabhainn", anglicized as "McGowan"....

>The stress is definitely on the first syllable. One does hear some normal
>generative English variations such as ˈjunəˌkoËd. (schwa instead of
>short-i),

The pronuncuation ['juni:ko:d] with [i:] or [i] instead of schwa irritates
me a lot. No one would pronounce "universe" with an [i].

Michael Everson ** Everson Gunn Teoranta ** http://www.egt.ie
15 Port Chaeimhghein êochtarach; Baile çtha Cliath 2; ƒire/Ireland
Mob +353 86 807 9169 ** Fax +353 1 478 2597 ** Vox +353 1 478 2597
27 P‡irc an FhŽithlinn; Baile an Bh—thair; Co. çtha Cliath; ƒire



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