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Reforms that you want to see in languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6768 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 9 of 72 06 April 2010 at 2:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, vowel shifts and convergences/divergences tend to be systematic, so you could use a system similar to what English dictionaries use to distinguish all phonemes without distinguishing between how an American and a Brit pronounce them. It might be centuries away, but English spelling will probably have to change at some point. (Maybe if it splits into multiple languages eventually, that will help the process.) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5967 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 72 06 April 2010 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A recent article in The New York Times discusses the possibility that English spelling reform, or at least some permanent orthographic changes, could come about through the growing popularity and common use of text-message shorthand.
Of course, there's disagreement about this. To me, this kind of writing looks wrong, but if enough people eventually adopt the altered spellings, the standard would likely change. Text Message Spelling vs. Standard Written English 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 11 of 72 06 April 2010 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
Liaison is sometimes optional, especially depending on how much pause there is between words. So it wouldn't be that simple... French natives don't have difficulty reading new words. Unlike English, there is usually only one way to read a written word. However, it does take a while to get used to the rules, I must admit. Of course, the spelling carries a lot of history, etymology and allows for distinctions between words that would otherwise sound the same, such as vin(s), vingt, vainc(s), vain(s), etc. However, if it weren't for some type of personal attachment to these differences (presumably caused by the fact that we are used to them), I'd say scrap it. I often come across Japanese words that sound the same but have different kanjis. Sometimes, the meaning is so close that maintaining a distinction in the kanji alone is artificial as the two words are obviously related (take "miru", for instance). I suppose the Japanese care about these distinctions while I, with not particular attachment to them, would stay "scrap it.
There is a perfectly simple phonological explanation for this. A very similar situation occurs with plural or 3rd person singular -s which surfaces as -s, -z or -iz depending on the previous sound. This type of predictable phonological assimilation occurs is most languages and is, as far as I know, virtually never reflected in the spelling. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6894 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 72 06 April 2010 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
In the case "a learned person" though, I guess you would pronounce it LER-NID, not LERND, so it would still be different from the left-pondian past tense "learned". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6768 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 13 of 72 06 April 2010 at 5:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
Except that AOL-speak (text-message-ese, whatever) can vary a lot according to the speaker's English dialect. I once saw some British AOL-speak I could make no sense of whatsoever. A pan-English spelling reform would have to make sense for all native English speakers. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 14 of 72 06 April 2010 at 5:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
Exactly. It's called "voicing" or "devoicing" depending on which way round it works (pronounced "-ed" as /t/ is devoicing, pronouncing "-s" as /z/ is voicing). This is also why spelt, burnt and learnt are writted that way -- L and N are voiced consonants and wouldn't naturally devoice a D. Written languages cannot be phonetic and can only strive to be phonemic, which is why we don't need a Y at the start of the word "university" -- an unstressed oo sound in English is always (clear foreign loans excepted -- eg creme brulé) preceeded by a Y-glide. There are genuinely useful ways to improve English orthography, but most would-be reformers pick the wrong targets and undermine their own arguments.... 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| portunhol Triglot Senior Member United States thelinguistblogger.w Joined 6252 days ago 198 posts - 299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (classical) | Message 15 of 72 06 April 2010 at 6:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think it's worth the effort. One of the reasons Spanish and Italian are so "easy" to learn is because they have very phonological writing systems. I would feel quite lazy if I said that I oppose a spelling reform - even a slight one - that would favor millions of people now, and billions to come, simply because it's a hassle. We often need to be willing to make short term sacrifices for long term benefits. If we don't understand that we'll never get out of this global recession.
I would encourage the French, Chinese, Arabic and other language groups to do it as well. In the age of globalization, why wouldn't we want to facilitate communication? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5448 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 16 of 72 06 April 2010 at 6:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think a reform that makes adding vowel diacritics in Arabic and other abjad scripts recommended and/or mandatory would be nice. Although it would be a bit ugly.
I also think Anglicizing foreign names instead of writing them as they are spelled in the native languages (i. e. Czech Republic), would be nice, although I don't think a complete English spelling reform would be so good. I'm not sure if these count as reforms, but personally I want to see more Germanic words in English instead of people using Latin words to sounds more intelligent. I've noticed something similar in Korean, where it seems that using Sino-Korean words makes people feel like they are using more "intelligent" words and native Korean words not as much. Sometimes it seems that the native Korean equivalents even seem vulgar. I hope a lot of Sino-Korean words ared replaced with more Korean words and hanja would be less used. I'm not anti-Chinese, maybe I'm just a naive nationalist, but that's just a feeling I have. Edited by chucknorrisman on 06 April 2010 at 6:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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