Simple alphabet, a good thing ??!!
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This thread was started before. I thought I'd revive it. It seems that having are
26 letter alphabet is a good thing because it's fair to all dialects because if we
extended the alphabet it wouldn't be fair to all dialects.
There are over 18 different ways that ''caramel'' is pronounced by different native speakers. If we were going to have a phonemically accurate orthography we'd have to have over 18 different spellings for that one word. |
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English could use an updated, totally phonetic alphabet regardless of regional and class differences in pronunciation. The problem you have with a writing system that doesn't reflect the spoken language is that you will eventually arrive at an ideographic system of writing much like Chinese. |
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>>The problem you have with a writing system that doesn't reflect the spoken language
is that you will eventually arrive at an ideographic system of writing much like
Chinese.<<
Well, I think English spelling already IS like Chinese in some way now. I mean, you almost have to learn each word separately without too much generalising as to the spelling of similar-sounding words, else you may be in for a bad surprise. But talking about spelling reform: how on earth will you get speakers of a language spoken on five continents (the Americas taken as one) and with the most prestigious status in the world to change their spelling? That would have been realistic before the rise of the British Empire, but no longer. |
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As I've mentioned on another thread spelling reform is a bad idea for many reasons,
here are some of them,
1. It would look really alien and strange. 2. Old books would have to be rewritten to match new spelling. 3.The relationship between words like please/pleasure, nation/national, nature/natural, christian/christianity etc. would be less obvious in a strictly phonemic system. 4.We don't all pronounce certain words the same way. How can you accommodate different dialects when there's so much variation out there? Here are some of the problems with accommodating different dialects, 1.There are over 18 different pronunciations of ''caramel'' made by Native speakers therefore to represent each dialect phonemically accurately we'd have to have over 18 different spellings for that word. 2.We don't all pronounce certain words the same way. 3.Not all accents make the same phonemic distinctions or have the same phonemes. There are some phonemic distinctions that exist in some accents but not others. For instance, in the accent of East Anglia (northeast of London), pairs such as moan/mown, sole/soul, nose/knows, doe/dough, no/know, throne/thrown, throe/throw and toe/tow are not pronounced as homophones, as they are in other accents. Instead, they constitute minimal pairs, the contrast being that the first member of each pair is pronounced with a [O] vowel, while the second has [Ou] (Wells 1982 : 337). East Anglian English thus has one more phoneme than RP, etc, in this respect. Do you show a distinction between those two phonemes in your spelling system? Another example is word pairs like Mary/marry/merry, fairy/ferry, hairy/Harry, carry/Kerry, Barry/berry etc. In my American accent there's no distinction between those words and they're homonyms but in some accents there's a distinction and for them Mary/marry/merry are all distinct. A British spelling reformer once proposed that ''thought'' should be respelled ''thort''. That spelling would work for that spelling reformer's accent but would look insane for my accent and much worse than the originally spelling. Here's some other examples of such phonemic distinctions made by some Native speakers but not by others, cot, caught wine, whine Barry, berry fairy, ferry caught, court harm, arm pull, pool do, dew don, dawn hairy, Harry pour, poor serious, Sirius shore, sure father, farther horse, hoarse toe, tow royal, roil can (able to), can (the metal container) tide, tied an, Ann hire, higher flour, flower tire, tier soul, sole groan, grown thrown, throne dough, doe no, know chord, cord corps, core war, wore whether, weather staid, stayed allowed, aloud main, mane sail, sale suit, soot put, putt eight, ate buck, book meat, meet vein, vain leak, leek beach, beech vain, vane cook, kook pull, pool vein, vane rude, rood steel, steal hat, at coup, coo road, rode to, too site, sight isle, aisle lute, loot luce, loose pause, paws faun, fawn lennon, lenin yak, yack bread, bred lead (the metal), led read (past tense of read), red knight, night mite, might knot, not dew, due mews, muse blew, blue miner, minor tore, tour write, rite wreck, reck harm, arm altar, alter cord, card thine, vine son, sun gnome, nome metal, mettle coal, cole gram, graham bleu (cheese), blew whole, hole medal, meddle paw, pa bowl, bull doo, dew Rhode, rode taught, tot hall, hull peace, piece bus, buss balm, bomb meter, metre wrote, rote phat, fat hole, hull taut, taught herd, hurd Jim, gym peer, pier plum, plumb ant, aunt bite, byte doo, due break, brake steak, stake phase, faze fir, fur scent, sent aye, eye guard, god hertz, hurts shoe, shoo wood, would do, doo cola, kola bang, bhang Jo, Joe find, fond rays, raise cent, sent law, la chair, cheer oh, owe time, Tom carat, karat metal, medal threw, through rode, road lock, loch missed, mist scent, cent dole, dhole stare, stir psalm, Sam qat, kat Patric, Patrick check, cheque pen, pin gee, jee band, banned heel, hill rein, reign sail, sell Sunday, sundae ought, aught tire, tower, tar fisher, fissure rough, ruff hem, him sign, sine tenor, tenner betta, better boil, ball I, aye oil, awl bell, belle mind, mined roes, rose lune, loon awe, ah sore, saw awl, all where, wear me, mi sell, sail I, eye farm, form key, quay meal, mill balk, baulk quartz, quarts steal, still heat, eat hall, haul It doesn't end there. For some people ''singer'' and ''finger'' rhyme, for some they don't. For some people ''hurry'' and ''furry'' rhyme, for some they don't. For some people ''owl'' and ''towel'' rhyme, for some they don't. For some people ''dial'' and ''tile'' rhyme, for some they don't. Other examples of words that rhyme for some but not for others, dinner, winner hi, tie antennae, cacti liter, meter foot, boot fool, wool squirrel, girl steeple, people yaks, tax parallel, bell where, fare thought, caught gnu, zoo diaper, wiper lose, choose ties, rise very, merry this, miss move, groove soup, loop berry, bury see, key gunner, scunner simmer, dimmer safari, sari if, stiff fruit, brute libel, Bible condemn, stem people, steeple For some the ''qu'' sound in ''quick'', and the ''kw'' sound in ''Kwanzaa'' are the same, for some they're different. For some the ''q'' sound in ''Qatar'', and the ''c'' sound in ''cat'' are the same, for some they're different. For some, the ''ai'' sound in ''aisle'' and the ''ei'' sound in ''einstein'' are the same, for others they're different. For some the ''e'' sound in ''re'', and the ''a'' sound in ''name'' are the same, for some they're different. Other examples, the ''ou'' in ''thou'' and the ''au'' in ''Krakatau''. The ''ae'' in ''Gaelic'' and the ''a'' in ''name''. The ''gh'' in ''laugh'' and the ''f'' in ''if''. the ''x'' in ''example'' and the ''gs'' in ''dogs''. The ''a'' in ''bath'' vs. the ''a'' in ''father'' vs. the ''a'' in ''cat''. The ''x'' in ''xylophone'' and the ''z'' in ''zoo''. the ''ae'' in ''faeces'' and the ''e'' in ''meter''. The ''oe'' in ''foetus'' vs. the ''ae'' in ''faeces'' vs. the ''e'' in ''meter''. The ''o'' in ''cloth'' vs. the ''o'' in ''cot'' vs. the ''au'' in ''caught''. The ''ch'' in ''chef'' vs. the ''sh'' in ''shine''. The ''a'' in ''father'' vs. the ''aa'' in ''Saab''. The ''sch'' in ''schmuck'' vs. the ''ch'' in ''chef'' vs. the ''sh'' in ''shine''. The ''th'' in ''Thompson'' vs. the ''t'' in ''time''. The ''ps'' in ''psycho'' vs. the ''s'' in ''sun''. The ''ll'' in ''Llwyd'' vs. the ''l'' in ''light''. The ''oo'' in ''book'' vs. the ''oo'' in ''good''. The ''m'' in ''prism'' vs. the ''om'' in ''blossom''. ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' There are problems with individual words too. ''often'' can be pronounced with the ''t'' or without. ''route'' can rhyme with ''boot'' or ''spout''. ''herb'' can be pronounced with the ''h'' or without. ''because'' can rhyme with either ''buzz'' or ''pause''. ''literature'' can be pronounce many different ways. ''clothes'' can be pronounced with the ''th'' or without. I pronounce ''want'' to rhyme with ''hunt'' but some others say ''wahnt'', ''wawnt'' or ''wont''. They're are over 18 different pronunciations of ''caramel''. '''''''''''''''''''''' I hate spelling reform. It's very unnecessary. Why do we need spelling reform. Traditional orthography best represents all dialects of English. Also, if we had a spelling reform all of the old books would have to be rewritten. Also, hoo wuud wunt u straenj luuking orthogrufee eneewae? Ie shur wuudunt wunt too see such u straenj thing. Wie wuud ue wunt too see sumthing straenj such az xis. In wee reeformd xu Ingglish langgwij it wuud luuk reelee straenj indeed. Ol uv xu oeld buuks wuud haftoo bee reeritun. Spelling reform is nonsense. I say it again, keep spelling the way it is. KEEP SPELLING THE WAY IT IS!!!!!!! I hate spelling reform. Truespel is one of the worst examples of a spelling reform system. Truespel won't work for RP, Estuary English, Scouse, Australian accents and as for Scots and Scottish accents, forget it. Keep spelling the way it is. |
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Quit f**king repeating that same dumb post over and over and address my arguments.
Or admit that you simply have no rational arguments but your childlike attachment to an illogical system. |
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| Also, don't be fooled by that deceptive list. That list repeats some distinctions (wh/w and r-dropping only need to be covered once each) and includes foreign pronunciations as if they were part of English, such as Q of Qatar and LL of Llwyd, which are Arabic and Welsh pronunciations, respectively. |
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''Also, don't be fooled by that deceptive list. That list repeats some distinctions
(wh/w and r-dropping only need to be covered once each) and includes foreign pronunciations
as if they were part of English, such as Q of Qatar and LL of Llwyd, which are Arabic
and Welsh pronunciations, respectively.''
The Welsh ''ll'' sound exists in Welsh English dialects as well, so it is part of some English dialects. Why is my list deceptive and where does it repeat some distinctions? I don't like the idea of respelling ''wh'' as ''hw''. Not everyone that makes the wh/w distinction says ''hw''. Some say a voiceless ''w'' sound so keeping the diagraph ''wh'' would be much better than using ''hw''. I hate spelling reform. It would cost too much and all of the old books would have to be rewritten. Ie haet speling reeform. It wuud kost too much and ol uv xu oeld buuks wuud hafto bee reritun. Another problem with spelling reform is that some words can sound differently depending on where they are in the sentence. Compare, I have two dollars. Ie hav too dolurz. I have to have two dollars. I haftoo hav too dolurz I should have had two dollars. I shuuduv had too dolurz. |
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That's not a problem, because each word has a single spelling, regardless of where
it is in the sentence. Except for "a" and "an" which already have separate spellings.
But your last example... you mean as opposed to: "I should have had two dollars." -and- "I should've had two dollars."? Oh wait, you forgot that we already write the equivalent of that in our current system! Oops. Other than some standard contractions, we don't need to represent running speech, since as long as you know how to spell the word in isolation, you can spell it in the system. Therefore it'll be "supowzd tú" rather than "supowste" for "supposed to", unless, for example, you're writing dialog and you want to make it seem more informal, or more like a dialect (as when in current writing we might write "s'pose"). We don't write spell differently for running speech now (with the exception of some contractions), why do you assume we would in spelling reform? That's one of the silliest objections yet. Not as silly as "It would look weird!", but close. Are these people also Welsh speakers, or monolingual English speakers from Wales? Why do we NEED to keep the distinction, especially considering that current spelling makes the disinction basically nowhere except in Welsh personal and place names? Will Welsh English speakers be all of a sudden confused by the fact that "LL" is *gasp* still not represented in English orthography? Can you give me an example of an *ENGLISH derived word*, rather than a *WELSH personal/place name* where a Welsh English speaker makes a distinction between the "LL" and "L"? In other words, can you provide me with a minimal pair? Or do they only pronounce it in words of Welsh origin? You have "whether" and "weather", "where" and "wear", which is a single distinction that needs no repeating. Same thing for "father" and "farther", "caught" and "court", which are both r-dropping. It might be r-dropping in combination with a vowel change, but you need only mention r-dropping and the vowel change, the combination of the two does not need a separate item. |
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keep spelling the way it is,
I think you have a little too much time on your hands. Why don't you try taking up a few hobbies that will help get the blood pressure down. May I suggest model making, or maybe you could try tai chi? |
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Erimer,
On second thought, my last post goes for you too. |
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''You have "whether" and "weather", "where" and "wear", which is a single distinction
that needs no repeating.''
But there different words though. Here are some others, wheel/weal what/watt when/wen whine/wine white/wight whey/way whin/win whirled/world whir/were |
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| Come on guys, take a break, for you own sakes, if no one else's. No one needs to blow a gasket here. Take some deep breaths, then step away from the computer. You'll both feel much better, trust me. |
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| Erimir, I was wondering what r-dropping is. I am researching several things for an English project of mine and was curious on the subject. |
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| R-dropping is something that occurs in some dialects of English. Southern England, Australian, New Zealand, Boston etc. are examples. In those accents ''car'' sounds like ''cah'', ''park'' sounds like ''pahk'', ''barber'' sounds like ''bahbuh'' etc. |
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Oh, that would explain why I wouldn't know what that is. I say car as car and park
as park. I don't drop my r's and consider myself to not fit into in specific English
dialect. I have moved around the U.S. for the majority of my childhood and have never
stayed in any place long enough to develop a singular accent.
I respect your desire for a simple alphabet I'm curious as to which English dialect it would be based off. A more southern, northern, or western pronounciation? |