Romanian language symbols

[Robert Dietrich]

Hello Patrick:

I am transcribing a song in the Romanian language. There is a recurrent letter S with a half-circle above it. There is no corresponding braille character in World Braille Usage. How do you suggest I handle this character?

Robert

[Patrick Janson]

Hi Robert,

A breve over an "s" is indeed unusual. I am assuming that's what you mean when you write "a half-circle" above it. Look carefully to see if it is a caron or circumflex.

If it is an breve, then you can use the UEB modifier for breve (dots 4, 346) ahead of the "s". If you want it to be a single-cell character, then you could chose the UEB "the" symbol perhaps, and mark it on your SS page that it represents an s with a breve over it.

Patrick

 

[Anna]

I'd be interested to see an image of the accented letter.  It may be a symbol added as a pronunciation aid, a symbol previously but no longer in use, or potentially the song is in a dialect (although you'd probably see other alphabetical differences in that case).  For any of those possibilities, the safest bet is to use the UEB modifier that matches, or use a transcriber-defined modifier if it doesn't match any of the symbols in UEB section 4.2.

[Robert Dietrich]

Hello Anna:

You had asked to see the modified letters I was referring to. Here is a sample of an S and a C with the half-circle (breve) that I had asked about. At another point in the song, there is also a Z with the same mark above the letter. I used the UEB breve above following letter in each case. I can change it if you have another idea.

Robert

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[Anna]

Ok, thanks for adding the picture.  If this has definitively been identified as Romanian, I think that is the best way to deal with the symbols.

I have a suspicion that it's not actually Romanian.  Google Translate's "detect language" feature labels it as Croatian, which would certainly fit with the symbols you've indicated.  Does the song also have the comma-below letters or the accented vowels found in the Romanian alphabet (and not the Croatian alphabet)?  If not I would be increasingly suspicious.  Still, if the requestor says it's Romanian, treating it as Romanian is a very reasonable thing to do.

[Robert Dietrich]

Hello Anna:

Thank you for the information. The song identifies itself as a "Romani folk song." This appears to be some type of regional dialect that extends beyond Romania and is also not the official Romanian language identified in World Braille Usage. I identified the song as a Romani folk song in the transcription and used the "breve above following letter" symbol where it appeared. Under the circumstances, that was the best I could do.

[Anna]

Thanks for the follow-up!  That explains a lot.  Romani is actually a separate language from Romanian.  Romanian has similar roots to Italian and French, while Romani is related to languages spoken in India.  Since Romani isn't a Word Braille Usage language, using the UEB accent symbols is absolutely the correct approach.

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