Spelling reform idea.

greg   Fri Aug 19, 2005 11:36 am GMT
A l'origine la langue écrite était une simple représentation de la langue parlée. Mais ça n'est plus tout à fait le cas aujourd'hui : l'écrit a acquis son autonomie. On peut tout à fait s'échanger des messages écrits en latin ou en intergermania sans que l'absence de locuteurs maternels pose le moindre problème. Le latin écrit du XXIe siècle n'est pas la représentation d'une langue vivante. C'est encore plus simple dans le cas d'intergermania : les messages de Travis nous expliquant son fonctionnement ont précédé l'apparition (toujours hypothétique) d'intergermanophones (même d'adoption).
Travis   Fri Aug 19, 2005 6:16 pm GMT
greg, kannst du in andere Sprache bitte übersetzen, was du nur gesagt hast?
Sander   Fri Aug 19, 2005 6:20 pm GMT
Travis,

He said;

=>To the origin the written language was a simple representation of the spoken language. But that is not really the case today: the manuscript obtained his autonomy. One can completely to exchange itself written messages in Latin or in intergermania without that the absence of speakers maternal puts the least problem.The Latin written in the XXIe century is not the representation of a living language. This is again simpler in the intergermania case: the messages of Travis explaining us his functioning preceded the apparition (always hypothetical) of intergermanophones (even of adoption). <=
Travis   Fri Aug 19, 2005 6:26 pm GMT
Sander, I see you did a quite literal translation of greg's post in some places. ;)
Sander   Fri Aug 19, 2005 6:32 pm GMT
I didn't translate it myself,pff I could never do that from French,I used a translator and modified the text,you know adjusting the verbs and some words ;)

Thing is that these translators are programmed to stay as close as possible to the original text,this presents a problem with the Latin languages and the enormous latin vocabulary of English.
retranslator   Fri Aug 19, 2005 6:40 pm GMT
Originally, the written language was a simple representation of the spoken language. But that is not completely the case any more today: the writing acquired its autonomy. One can completely exchange messages written in Latin or intergermania without the absence of native speakers posing the least problem. Written Latin of today is not the representation of a living language. It is even simpler in the case of intergermania: Travis' messages explaining his operation preceded the appearance (always hypothetical) of intergermanophones (even adoptive ones).
american nic   Fri Aug 19, 2005 6:48 pm GMT
Instead of creating an artificial 'average dialect', why not let the written form represent every (major) one? For example, as there are many people who aren't cot/caught merged (particularily outside of NA), there would be two letters representing each vowel. Then, each dialect would respond to that in the way they would respond normally: cot/caught non-merged people would pronounce them differently, cot/caught merged people would just know to pronounce them the same. This could apply to every major split in pronunciation in English. It would still require a little bit of memorization, but at least there wouldn't be exceptions.
Travis   Fri Aug 19, 2005 7:21 pm GMT
Well, yes, one could ahead of time make a phoneme inventory that favored more distinctions rather than less, by intentionally *not* favoring mergers when constructing it. The main point is just so that there is actually agreed-upon spellings when actually writing in a phonemic orthography, while being representative of the dialect range in question as a whole except in cases where one is deliberately not doing so, like in this case, and being generally fair with respect to the dialects under consideration rather than simply arbitrarily favoring some particular preexisting forms. The problem with trying to simply do what you propose is because in many cases there are not simple mergers across the board that can be easily dealt with, but rather specific forms that have individually or as very limited cases changed in particular places in various dialects, which cannot be accounted for by just having an orthography representing an extremely un-merged artificial form alone. For example, the question of whether "route" should be /raUt/ or /rut/, or whether "roof" should be /ruf/ or /rUf/, or whether "sure" should be /Sur/, /Sor/, /SOr/, or /S@`/. As many of these cases are rather limited, they cannot be dealt with such methods.
SpaceFlight   Sat Aug 20, 2005 1:20 am GMT
Quote-''For example, the question of whether "route" should be /raUt/ or /rut/, or whether "roof" should be /ruf/ or /rUf/, or whether "sure" should be /Sur/, /Sor/, /SOr/, or /S@`/. As many of these cases are rather limited, they cannot be dealt with such methods.''

Okay, there's nothing wrong with having a few variant spellings:

I'll use:

''uu'' for /U/

''oo'' for /u/

''ou'' for /aU/

''oe'' for /o/

''au'' for /O/

''ur'' for /@`/

Such as these:

roof = ''roof'' and ''ruuf'' (depending on how you pronounce it)

route = ''rout'' or ''root''

sure = ''shoor'', ''shoer'', ''shaur'' or ''shur''.

Is there anything wrong with having a few variant spellings? We already do. ''aluminum'' and ''aluminium'' correspond to different pronunciations used in American and British English.
american nic   Sat Aug 20, 2005 1:40 am GMT
I agree. There can't be any more than a hundred or two of those special case words. Hence, allowing for a few variant spellings would still be an improvement on the current system.
Travis   Sat Aug 20, 2005 1:45 am GMT
>>Is there anything wrong with having a few variant spellings? We already do. ''aluminum'' and ''aluminium'' correspond to different pronunciations used in American and British English.<<

The main thing is that in writing that is not informal, I do think that it is useful to have standardized *spellings* just from a practical standpoint, especially today, for without such things like searching for particular words or phrases and like would become far more difficult simply because one would have to actually take account of all the different variations in the spelling off any given word. Here, standardization is not simply for its own sake or for trying to impose some kind of general conformity, but rather for simple practical reasons like such, so that people only have to *think* of a single spelling, old spellings aside, for any given word in any particular context. How people actually themselves pronounce words is another story, as while such "average" phonemic representations do try to at least be generally representative of the dialects under consideration in the first place, they are not supposed to actually indicate somehow how people "should" pronounce things at all.
SpaceFlight   Sat Aug 20, 2005 2:08 am GMT
Quote-''I agree. There can't be any more than a hundred or two of those special case words. Hence, allowing for a few variant spellings would still be an improvement on the current system.''

Yeah, there is nothing wrong with having a few variant spellings. Here are some more:

schedule - ''skejooul'' vs. ''skejool'' vs. ''shejool''.

world - ''wuruld'' vs. ''wurld

either - ''eether'' vs. ''iether''
american nic   Sat Aug 20, 2005 3:29 am GMT
Schedule and either could have two different spellings, but I'm confused on the world thing...

Yet again, if anyone's interested (hint, hint) in this topic, perhaps it could be continued over at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/englishspellingreformgroup/

where I set up a small, as of yet unused, group for this very purpose.
Travis   Sat Aug 20, 2005 10:47 am GMT
SpaceFlight, before one can at all competently design an orthography for anything, you must understand not only the difference between phones and phonemes, but you must also understand that many differences between dialects do not exist at the phoneme level, but rather exist at the phonological level where said phonemes are converted into actual realized phones. For example, you propose two different alternate spellings for the word "world", "wurld" and "wuruld". However, have you ever considered that the difference between the two forms is not in the phonemes for the word itself, but rather how thoses phonemes are actually realized as phones, with some dialects preferring nonsyllabic realizations of /l/ in this case, and with some other dialects generally preferring realizations of /l/ in the position it is in in said word. Same thing goes with "skejooul" versus "skejool", where one could easily chalk up the difference between the two to not differences in actual phonemes, but solely to differences in the underlying phonologies in question.
SpaceFlight   Sat Aug 20, 2005 2:53 pm GMT
Quote-''where one could easily chalk up the difference between the two to not differences in actual phonemes, but solely to differences in the underlying phonologies in question.''

Not necessarily true, because for example:

''schedule'' and ''rule'' don't rhyme for me. the -ule in ''rule'' is monosyllabic and the ''-ule'' in ''schedule'' is bisyllabic.