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Germanic Lexicon Project
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Author: Dieter Studer (University of Zurich)
Email: dieterstuder at access dot unizh dot ch
Date: 2006-02-11 06:08:59
Subject: acute versus circumflex
Marvellous project! Congratulations!
I just had a go at correcting a page myself, and I encountered a problem that I think has not been discussed in this forum.
Consulting your correction manual, I realized that you treat acute and cirmcumflex the same, namely as a marker for length, but Bosworth-Toller use acute in words like eów (to indicate hiat versus diphthong) and circumflex in words like frôfre (to indicate length). Those two diacritics are somewhat similar in the font used in Bosworth-Toller, but the acute rises more steeply and the circumflex has a tiny hook at the right end.
Your example, however, 'under his clâðum' with a-circumflex is transcribed as 'under his cláðum' a-acute. I was not sure whether this is your policy (I haven't found any explicit rule about this on this site), or whether you haven't noticed it. In Old Norse it is usual to indicate length with acute, but in the Old English literature I know it is more usual to use circumflex or even macron
Maybe it does not deal a great matter, but I just wanted to get some confirmation before I continued correcting.
Thanks for your replies, Didi