Radical spelling reform or partial modification?

Travis   Mon Aug 29, 2005 6:28 pm GMT
american nic, that is why I'm primarily supportive of radical spelling reform, as if we are to effectively force people to learn a whole new spelling system, it should practically be a complete solution to our spelling problems, at least within the range of dialects under consideration in the first place. Why give people the difficulties of learning a whole new system if the new system they are to learn is not much better than the old one?
eito   Mon Aug 29, 2005 7:01 pm GMT
Either it's a complete spelling reform, or none at all?

Some reformers have suggested that the "er" sound should be consistently spelled with "er". They spell "jerny" for "journey". "Turn" will change to "tern". Both "earn" and "urn" will be integrated into "ern". Radical reformers would spell homofones the same.

If you visit <http://www.e-speec.com>, you can see an example of a complete spelling reform. I suppose North Americans and foreign learners would hesitate to accept it.
Uriel   Mon Aug 29, 2005 7:02 pm GMT
I haven't seen anything in all this that really simplifies anything. If it's not immediately easy to sight-read, I don't see the point. If it's something where we have to learn the underlying structure to make it out, well, we already did that when we learned to read the FIRST time.
Guest   Mon Aug 29, 2005 7:13 pm GMT
If one makes the best use of Magic-E and one changes "road", "reign", and "newt" to "rode", "rane", and "nute", do you agree?
Travis   Mon Aug 29, 2005 8:16 pm GMT
eito, well, one thing you have to consider about radical reform is that it does not necessarily have to be purely phonemic for any specific dialect; such would be problematic if one were to try to enact orthographic reform for much of English as a whole, as it would be too arbitrary, and would likely not represent many distinctions that some but not all dialects may have. Rather, it can try to represent as many distinctions as possible, within the range of dialects under consideration, and it can use the most recent common historical form for any given set of versions of the same word in modern dialects for deciding between forms in different modern dialects. Of course, it can be designed so as if it *would* be purely phonemic if what it represented corresponded to an actual dialect.

The logic behind this is that it is better for individuals to have to actually learn different spellings for different meanings for what are homophones for themselves than for individuals to have multiple pronunciations corresponding to multiple meanings which are written the same in the orthography in question, and that, when it comes to tie-breaking, conservative forms are preferable to progressive forms. In this way, one can have a cleanly and consistently designed orthography that can actually serve *all* of English, and not just a limited section of it, without simply being a rehash or revision of the preexisting orthography.
eito   Mon Aug 29, 2005 9:22 pm GMT
English spelling reform should not be too regional. I would not spell "orlwaze" for "always". And no "byutifl" or "tyuna".

Additionally, the spelling of "beautiful" is strange. Some peeple might prefer "butiful", but I would prefer "beutiful" because it could be occasionally pronounced like "bee-u-tif-ul".
american nic   Mon Aug 29, 2005 10:25 pm GMT
If we are going to ignore that turn and tern are not the same in some conservative dialects, then why not just spell them trn? Why keep (or change) a vowel that not really there for many speakers?

Also, why not choose a few standard forms, one representing each of the main English-speaking regions (US/Canada, UK/Ireland, Australia/New Zealand, South Africa, etc.) and of those few dialects create one general global standard, and base the orthography of older English forms.

Finally, even if we came up with a simpler, perfect system that is agreeable to everyone, there is no official organization that would have the clout to make it be actually used, as they have with many other languages. However, we have the power of the internet. If we COULD make a good system, we could use it, online at least, teach it (assuming it's easy enough to teach) to friends, family, people we meet online, whoever, and also to have a resources, including an online standard dictionary for reference, etc. If enough people started using the system, who knows where it could go. Just thinking.
eito   Thu Sep 01, 2005 4:08 pm GMT
Personally, I prefer "turn" to tern", because "turn" is sufficiently fonetic. We don't have to spell "trn". That reminds me of Cut Spelling. I don't like it!

There are lots of words that are easy to understand in terms of propper pronunciation. I presume some reformers seek for some kind of their own "originality". I would not have any surplus originality.

If there were the official organization with great power, its members would be learned peeple. Very horrible if they were obedient to ancient or foreign languages.

We have the power of the Internet. Let's believe in it.
eito   Thu Sep 01, 2005 4:55 pm GMT
* At the end of a word, just retain the final "y" when adding "-ed" or "-s" to it. We don't have to change "y" to "i/ie".
e.g.: coppyed, classifyed ; hobbys, spys, flys

* Propper use of "-able" and "-ible" has to be simplifyed.
After soft C and soft G, use "-ible". e.g.: changible, intangible, invincible
In other cases, always use "-able". e.g.: responsable, terrable, invisable

* If we retain soft/hard C and G, that would affect consonant dubbling. There is another rule. We don't dubble soft C or soft G. We don't have to spell "assid"(acid), "tassit"(tacit) ; "majjic"(magic), "majjical"(magical), and "majician"(magician).

* We retain unstressed suffixes --- "-less" and "-ness". In these cases, consonant dubbling "-ss" is allowed. eg. carelessness, highness

* Basically, consonant dubbling should occur after short and stressed vowels. But the final dubbling "-ss" is allowed whether its preceding vowel is stressed or not.
e.g.: acommodate, apear, comercial, conect, falacious
e.g.: abyss, amiss ; furniss, justiss, prommiss, purposs, lettus/lettiss
Travis   Thu Sep 01, 2005 5:20 pm GMT
/me bangs his head against the keyboard in frustration.

The thing is that creating rules ad hoc on the fly is not a good way to go about orthography design, one way or another; rather, you should aim at creating an orthography which, at the grapheme level, always maps any single given sequence of phonemes (whether these are "real" phonemes or just phonemes in some constructed or reconstructed form is another matter) to a single sequence of graphemes, and maps any single *valid* sequence of graphemes to a single sequence of phonemes. Hence, one cannot create little rules like that by themselves, as rather one has to consistently design an *entire* orthography as a whole, without leaving anything to be simply assumed or be left implicit.
eito   Thu Sep 01, 2005 8:01 pm GMT
Should I aim at creating an entire orthografy as a whole, without leaving ennything to be simply asumed or be left implicit? Verry tuf!

Long-O can be represented by o,o*e,oe,oa,oh,ow,ou,ough,au,and eau. Go, vote, doe, boat, ohm, own, soul, dough, aubergine, and bureau. Do you agree if I sugest "goe", "voet", "doe", "boet", "oem", "oen", soel", "doe", oeberzheen, and bueroe? You might agree, but menny peeple would disagree. What would you think of "hieaetus" and "oeaesis"?

Some peeple created such systems. Peeple could choose one or some of them, but didn't. All we can do is to kill bugs one by one. For example, "oan"(own), "soal"(soul), "doagh"(dough), "oberjeen"(aubergine), and "buro"(bureau). Not so systematic!

I want to distinguish homofones, such as steal/steel/stele and meat/meet/mete. Don't you think so, Travis?

It's not that I don't have any plans in terms of vowel representation. It will take time because of my poor ability of English. I am Japanese, so when I think of something complicated(or not), I always rely on my own native language. Very sorry I am not good at foreign languages.
Travis   Thu Sep 01, 2005 10:09 pm GMT
The main problem is that if one simply tries to change the existing system, one is very likely to end up not really fixing things much at all, due to things like creating new exceptions for where one's changes are said to not apply, and so on. Of course, one can try to create a new system which very closely approximates the current one visually, which which remains logically consistent and complete, but that's another thing from simply proposing individual changes by themselves.

As for vowels in English, what makes that more problematic, as has been discussed before here, is that vowel systems in English dialects vary significantly, moreso than consonants in such. Of course, as has been mentioned, one can try to resolve such by preferring unmerged forms over merged forms, and by preferring conservative forms over progressive forms, but that's another discussion.
eito   Thu Sep 01, 2005 11:44 pm GMT
It is no good to change the existing sistem. I would like to make the best use of it. We have to try not to be too progressive. For lerners, "perish" and "flourish" do not rime. We would have to spell "perrish" and "flurrish", acording to the consonant dubbling rule. It must be needless to spell "mor" insted of "more". We should retain the "-tion" ending.

As for exceptions, individual changes are ocasionally unavoidable.

My sugestion was partial modification, originally. But now we ...
Guest   Mon Sep 05, 2005 4:30 pm GMT
American Nic's Spelling Reform Group?
SpaceFlight   Tue Sep 06, 2005 12:46 am GMT