underdot, Italian play

[rsherwood12]

Greetings! I am not sure whether this question should be under Foreign Language or Braille Formats. Please let me know if I should post in the other list.

I have an Italian play which uses the underdot symbol to indicate the stressed vowel in a word when it is not the penultimate syllable, and when it does not have a normal accent (grave, acute) to indicate the stress. I have attached a sample page.

Should I use the diacritic symbol listed in BF 21.4.1: underdot 9 (35)? Or should I follow the Interim Manual section 11.3(c) which says to insert the braille accent symbol (4) before the affected vowel because there is only a single print accent used (if so, should this change be noted on the TN page?)?

Also, the play is printed in paragraphs from 3-1. Should this be changed to follow prose play format, running from 1-3 for each speaker?

Many thanks,
Rebecca
(Murphy's Law of Braille Transcription: Any obscure, rare or ambiguous print format not covered in the available guidelines can and will occur in the works I transcribe!)

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[rsherwood12]

Venneri's Corollary to the law--And I will get the question about it.

This is definitely a foreign language question that belongs here. How do you know what this dot means? Does it say that in the book? I imagine it does. Please send the page that tells this to the reader. It will give us a strategy about handling this in braille.

--Joanna

[joannavenneri]

Thanks, Joanna.

Attached is the page with the explanation of the underdot.

Best,
Rebecca

[joannavenneri]

Any idea what it says in English? Texts ENTIRELY in the foreign language are particularly challenging. I need an English translation of this explanation. Do you have access to one? The teacher, perhaps?

--Joanna

[joannavenneri]

Unfortunately I am not working directly with the student or teacher. I can see if the group that assigned it to me can go back to the teacher.

My best translation of the paragraph is:
"Following the method of the Garzanti Dictionary of the Italian Language we indicate/denote the accent (.) under non-flat words and flat words of the type figlio, vecchio, braccio, Vittoria and allegria, fotografia. In finite verb forms, however, the accent is only reported in the imperative composition with pronouns."

My research indicates that in Italian most words, called flat words, are stressed on the next to last syllable. Sometimes an accented character is used to indicate a different stress, but sometimes the reader just has to know that the word is not a flat word. This book uses the underdot to help the reader learn to recognize and pronounce non-flat words.

Is that helpful enough? or should I still try to get an answer from the teacher?

Grazie,
Rebecca

[rsherwood12]

Thank you so much for sending me all the information I requested and for being patient. There is nothing in Foreign Language guidelines for this so we go to Formats. It's a little know fact that Foreign Language is actually a subset of Formats anyway. But I digress.

See Formats 21.4.1 and under that Example 21-8 specifically. From the information you've provided, I think these underdots are about pronunciation, but not really about stress or accented vowels because, as you explain, they denote words that are NOT accented. So, that's about pronunciation, but not about accents or emphasis.

I recommend the diacritic underdot. Just list it and identify it as the underdot and perhaps state that it precedes the affected letter. Don't say anything further because the text explains the rest. It does not appear that the dots assignment 35 conflicts with any of the Italian special symbols.

--Joanna

[rsherwood12]

P.S. I greatly appreciate Venneri's Corollary to Murphy's Law of Braille Transcription!

Cheers,
Rebecca

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