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The most phonetic languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| daniela Newbie Romania Joined 5283 days ago 18 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Romanian* | Message 41 of 96 07 July 2010 at 11:48am | IP Logged | |||||
If the word was formed using a prefix you should use î after the prefix too. It's unnecessary complicated, it's not even etymologically correct (because some of the â where i, e , o or u in Latin) and disapproved by linguists. The sound is more closely related to i than to a, but this is not important. What is important is that from one letter for one sound they made two letters for one sound. As for aesthetics, you like it, I think is ugly. Edited by daniela on 07 July 2010 at 12:00pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Raчraч Ŋuɲa Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5820 days ago 154 posts - 233 votes  Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese | Message 42 of 96 07 July 2010 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
I find it incredible that I've reached the sixth page and only one poster here noticed an apparent misuse of the word 'phonetic'. zerothinking is quite right, there is no existing language with a phonetic script at all. For a language to be phonetic, it must represent in its script even allophonic differences in its phonology. I thought what the original poster meant would be 'phonemic' which contrasts with 'phonetic'. Edited by Raчraч Ŋuɲa on 07 July 2010 at 1:36pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| egill Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5698 days ago 418 posts - 791 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 43 of 96 07 July 2010 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
Strictly speaking, yes. Only X language written in narrow transcription IPA orthography is phonetic. But that's not the broader usage of the word. The broader sense of the word phonetic predates the phonetic/phonemic distinction and is clearly what the OP meant and judging from the responses, what was clearly understood by most posters here. On the other hand, we do purport to be language enthusiasts and should strive to use correct technical terminology when it is useful. Hence, I would have been more comfortable with something along the lines of "Which language has the most phonemic orthography" But, that a looser sense of the word was used, which didn't impede understanding, is not a particularly major transgression in my book. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5450 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 44 of 96 08 July 2010 at 7:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If pinyin was the official system for actually writing Mandarin (as opposed to simply a learning tool), it would be the most phonetic script.
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| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6788 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 45 of 96 08 July 2010 at 8:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Tibetan spelling's a bit of a nightmare, having been standardized some time around 1000 years ago. However, it didn't seem all that difficult to predict the pronunciation from the spelling, which I believe is more important than the reverse.
Leading me to a tangential point, it seems that some believe that a language with a direct correspondance between grapheme and phoneme such that one can predict spelling or pronunciation given the other would be ideal. However, while this would likely favor learners and those writing in the language, it actually provides a hindrance to the reader, who can use alternate spellings to more quickly recognize the sense of the word and thus to read more quickly. Most people spend more time reading a language than learning to read it or writing in it. Finally, a relevant link, http://www.zompist.com/spell.html, where the author demonstrates English pronunciation to be predictable from spelling 85% of the time. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ubik Senior Member United States ubykh.wordpress.com/ Joined 5318 days ago 147 posts - 176 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Arabic (Egyptian), German, Spanish | Message 46 of 96 10 July 2010 at 12:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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Actually Arabic is pronounced exactly as it is written as well. Dont let the transliterations fool you. Those arent official whatsoever. They are just there because your average person wants to be able to say something without learning their alphabet first. Its the same thing in Cyrillic or any language that uses an alphabet that we arent used to.
I really cant offer much else that hasnt already been said except that from what Ive learned so far, Basque is another language where its a 1:1 ratio. If thats incorrect, please someone correct me. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| horshod Pentaglot Groupie India Joined 5772 days ago 74 posts - 107 votes Speaks: Hindi, Marathi*, Bengali, Gujarati, English Studies: German, Spanish, Turkish | Message 47 of 96 11 July 2010 at 6:59am | IP Logged | |||||
I would still say Sanskrit is 100% phonetic. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| galindo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5209 days ago 142 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Portuguese | Message 48 of 96 24 August 2010 at 1:04am | IP Logged | |||||
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A few people mentioned Japanese. Of course it's very phonetic, since each letter is a syllable. It's impossible to have irregular vowels or anything weird like that. It's definitely convenient, since you never have to wonder about how something is spelled. Of course, you still have to learn the kanji.
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