el
May 6th, 2009
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When I read texts in Sursilvan, I keep getting caught out by “el” — I keep parsing it as merely the definite article (under the influence, no doubt, of Spanish, or possibly even colloquial Arabic such as Egyptian) rather than as a contraction of “en il”.
Though I don’t have the same problem with other contractions of preposition + article such as “cul, pel (pil?), dil (dal?)”.
I think it’d be clearer if it were spelled “e’l” as is (I believe) the case in Ladin.