Re: [latina] How to start a translation

["Garcia, Rafael" <garcia WPI EDU>]

Re:
> Diphthongs. I think we should use the UTF-8 characters for the
> diphthongs (æ, œ) rather than spell them out (ae, oe). Does this make me
> an elitist? Comments?

Technically dipthong is a phonetic concept. æ and œ are called ligatures. Whether or not you write them as ligatures, they ae and oe are still dipthongs in latin, unless you explicitly write a diaeresis or macron over one of the letters. Also au and and ei are dipthongs too but they are not ever written as ligatures.

In my opinion ligatures are a matter of font choice not language. If such a font as  "medieval latin ligatured" existed, then it would automatically display all ae and oe as ligatures.  While I don't mind if someone converts my ae and oe contributions to ligatures for me, for the most part ligatures are eyecandy, or someone's attempt to save space in print. Thus I think for those who like ligatures, the thing to do is create a new font. For example, on Vicipaedia, under gadgets in preferences you can choose "Ligaturas monstrare (æ, œ)" and the ligatures are shown.

Rafael