Radical spelling reform or partial modification?

VOWELS REPRESENTATION OUTLINE (for modification)

SHORT VOWELS(when stressed)(in a closed syllable) cf. consonant dubbling

Short-A : usually spelled with "a"(cat, happen, passion).
Modification Target : "ai"(plaid), "au"(laugh), "ua"(guarantee, guaranty).

Short-E : usually spelled with "e"(best, cell, net).
Modification Target : "a"(any,many), "ea"(head), "ei"(heifer), "eo"(leopard), "ie"(friend).
It is better to retain "ai" as in "again" and "against".

Short-I : usually spelled with "i"(hit, hidden, skip).
Modification Target : "e"(pretty), "ie"(sieve), "u"(busy), "y"(sympathy,rhythm).
We have to retain "been", a very basic word.

Short-O : usually spelled with "o"(hot, shock, top).
Modification Target : "yacht"
It is better to retain "a" as in "quality" and "watch".

Short-U : usually spelled with "u"(cut, butter, must).
Modification Target : "o"(other), "oo"(flood), "ou"(young). Additionally, "flourish" and "nourish".
It is better to retain some words, such as "some" and "son", because each of them has a homofone.

LONG VOWELS

Long-A should be usually spelled with "a*e"(brake), "a"(basic), "ai"(rain), "ay"(way), and "ey"(obey).
Modification Target : "a" as in "bass"(music term), "au" as in "gauge", "ea" as in "break", "eig-" as in "reign", "eigh" as in "weigh" and "weight".
When the letter "e" is used for the Long-A sound, we do not change it. e.g.: fete, menage, mesa
As for "ei" as in "beige", "seine", "vein", we do not change them.
We still have "angel", "ancient", "chamber", "hasten", "table", "taste", etc.

Long-E : usually spelled with "e*e"(mete), "e"(meter), "ea"(sea), and "ee"(free).
Modification Target : "ei"(receipt), "ie"(siege), "ae"(Aegis), "oe"(coelacanth), "eo"(people), "ey"(key), and "ay"(quay).
We have to retain "either" and "leisure". Each of them has more than one pronunciation.
When "i" has the "ee" sound(e.g. visa), it is better to retain it. However, "ski" should be spelled "skee".

Long-I/Y : usually spelled with "i*e"(kite), "-y*e"(style), "i"(hi), "-y"(by), "-ie"(tie), "-ye"(bye), "-igh"(high), and "-uy"(buy).
Occasionally spelled with "ei"(kaleidoscope).
Modification Target : "climb", "indictment", "island", "psych", "sleight".
How do we deal with "child", "mild", "kind", "pint", etc.?
We still have {aisle, eider, eye, feisty, haiku, seismic, zeitgeist}.

Long-O : usually spelled with "o*e"(vote), "o"(go), "oa"(road), "oe"(toe), and unstable "ow"(bow). Occasionally spelled with "oh"(ohm).
Modification Target : "ew"(sew), "ow" before a consonant (bowl, own), "ou"(soul, shoulder), "ough"(dough), "o"(comb, ghost, scroll).
We retain some basic words, such as "both", "most", and "old".
We retain some French loans that have AU with long-O sound. e.g. au pair, gauche.

Long-U : usually spelled with "u*e"(fuse), "u"(mu, unity), "-ue"(due), "eu"(feudal), "ew"(new).
Modification Target : "eau"(beautiful), "-iew"(view), "ou"(coupon), "ui"(fruit).
We retain "ewe", "yew", and "you".

SOME OTHER VOWELS

Short-OO sound : usually spelled with "oo"(book). Occasionally, with "u"(push).
Modification Target : "o"(bosom, wolf), "oul"(could, should, would).
We retain "u" with the short-OO sound. e.g. bush, cushion, pull.

Long-OO sound : usually spelled with "oo"(taboo). Occasionally, with "u"(rule), "ew"(crew), etc.
Modification Target : "o"(move), "oe"(canoe, shoe), "ou"(group, soup).
However, we might have to retain spellings of menny words that came from French.

Broad-A : usually spelled with "a"(father, spa). Occasionally, with "aa" and "ah".
Modification Target : not found

"AU" sound[o:](as in "law") : usually spelled with "au"(pause), "augh"(caught), and "aw"(awful). We still have "call" and "talk".
Modification Target : "a"(water), "oa"(broad), and "-ough-"(followed by "t") as in "brought", "fought", "sought", etc.
However, the word "ought" has to remain the same.

"OI" sound(as in "voice") : usually spelled with "oi" and "oy".
Modification Target : not found
We have to retain "buoy". This can be pronounced as "booy".

"OU" sound(as in "out") : usually spelled with "ou" and "ow".
Modification Target : "doubt" and "drought".
We have to retain "gaucho" and "gauss". It is no good trying to use "ou" or "ow", as these two are ambiguous.

Shwa Sound
Some individual changes are unavoidable. Examples are "pageant"(drop A), "sergeant(drop A)", "vengeance(drop A)", and "parliament"(drop I).
We might be able to use "-gion" insted of "-geon" when it is pronounced with a shwa. e.g.: dungeon, pigeon, surgeon.

Furthermore, how do we deal with "biscuit", "circuit", "captain", "certain", "curtain", "mountain", "foreign", and "sovereign"?

VOWELS THAT ARE FOLLOWED BY "R"

Shwa+R sound
Basically, American spellings are preferable to British ones.

ER/IR/UR sound(not followed by any vowel letter)
Modification Target : "ear"(learn), "or"(attorney), "our"(journal, nourish), and "ir"(when hard G is followed by "ir"---e.g. gird, girl).
Additionally, "colonel".

AR sound(as in "car") : usually spelled with "ar"(not followed by any vowel letter)(e.g. bar, card, martial).
Modification Target : "are"(as in "You are ..."), "ear"(heart, hearth).

AIR sound(as in "fair") : usually spelled with "air"(pair, stair) and "-are"(bare, care). Occasionally with "eir"(their, heir).
Modification Target : "-ear" as in "bear" and "swear".
Additionally, "aerial", "prayer", and "scarce".
We should retain "there" and "where"(cf. here). "Ampere" and "compere", too.

EER sound(as in "beer") : usually spelled with "-ere"(mere), "ear"(hear), and "eer"(deer). Occasionally, with "-eir"(weir) and "-ier"(pier).
Modification Target : "eir"(weir,weird), "ear" before a consonant(beard), "-ier-"(fierce).

IRE sound(as in "fire") : usually spelled with "ire"(hire). Occasionally, with "ier"(lier). cf. liar
Modification Target : "fiery"---cf. fire

OR/ORE sound : usually spelled with "or"(nor), "oar"(soar), and "ore"(sore). Occasionally, with "-aur"(dinosaur).
Modification Target : "-oor"(door,floor), "-our"(court,four,mourn,pour).

URE sound can be spelled with "-ure"(cure,pure), "eur"(euro), "ewer"(fewer).
Modification Target : not found

OOR sound can be spelled with "-oor"(boor) and "-our"(tour).
Modification Target(if you like) : "tour", "tourism", and "tourist".

OUR sound can be spelled with "our"(hour,sour) and "-ower"(power,tower).
Modification Target : not found

Performing an orthography reform means to subdivide the people in at least two groups: the ones who stick to the classical spelling and the ones who think they can go on with the new one. Most of the people will be somewhere in between. Conclusion: Every spelling reform destroys the traditional orthography, gives rise to manipulations of various kinds, makes a few people richer then they were before, but enforces the majority to spend time and money for learning something new, where it is not sure if it will survive the next few years.

If there's already a traditional spelling for one language, never touch it, regardless how complicated it might seem. The concequences of a reform will result in much more complication!

In germany, there's very bad experience with a spelling reform.

Here's a link to a resolution on german orthography:
http://forschungsgruppe.free.fr/resolution.htm

If you want to have it in another language, visit this link:
http://forschungsgruppe.free.fr/aufrufintro.htm

Bardioc wrote : "If there's already a traditional spelling for one language, never touch it, regardless how complicated it might seem. The consequences of a reform will result in much more complication!"

If you think any traditional orthography should remain intact, you must be thinking of it on a short-term basis. Can you imagine what will happen 400 years later if spelling reform never takes place? There will be a chaos. Peeple today have to accept some changes before future generations say it's too late. Otherwise, German orthography will be left in chaos like Modern English. Do Germans still prefer "Strike"(English spelling) to "Streik"(German spelling)? I hope not. If I were a speaker of German, I would spell "zentral", "Paragleiten", and "Hobbys".

I feel very sad for too many A-Umlauts and needlessly tripled consonant letters! But the eszett(Sharp SS) rule has been simplifyed. Loanwords can be spelled more fonetically. Like many peeple, I am somewhere in between. I learned German many years ago. Mein Deutsch funktioniert nicht. But if I had some opportunitys of writing something in German, if any, I might prefer older spellings with nostalgia, occasionally. Nevertheless, I am supportive of spelling reform. Future generations will use the new orthography.

I will not say, "You must stop using your traditional stuff."

"If you think any traditional orthography should remain intact, you must be thinking of it on a short-term basis. Can you imagine what will happen 400 years later if spelling reform never takes place? There will be a chaos."

Yes, I think any traditional orthography should remain intact, but that's really not thinking on a short-term basis, its thinking really long-term!
Facts proof you wrong: Chaos is what we have now after about nine years of so-called "Rechtschreibreform"!

Englisch orthography is about 500 years old, is there some chaos? Classical german orthography was codified in 1901 on the base of commonly used writing and worked fine until 1996, where the reform took place by surprise two years earlier than originally planned. After that reform, error rates in school increased significantly. In this nine years of orthographic reform, the so-called reform was changed at least two times -- actually, they still change them -- so that in Germany, today, there's no orthography at all. In school, you learn the very complex and thus difficult rules form 1996 maybe with little changes, I don't know.
Some -- the most important -- newspapers returned to the classical orthography after some years of trying to apply reformed orthography. Many other newspapers developed so-called house-orthographies, most people still use the orthography they leant at school before 1996 and others only apply the parts of the reform they could grasp.

As you are Japanese, and Englisch and German is not your mother tounge, you might see chaos in classical English or German orthography where there isn't chaos at all to a native speaker! E.g. does the word
''Peeple'' you used has something to do with ''to peep''. Remember
''peeping Tom''! You can't remember? -- That's exactly what I mean!

If your're Japanese, would you like to have your writing system reformed?

For me as german native speaker, the japanese witing systems may look like the bare chaos! I know that it isn't chaos at all. There's hiragana and katakana and kanji with their special purpose respectivly. If you're used to that writing system, you get the information you need at a glance. As I'm not used to japanese witing system, it seems to me the total chaos!

That's the reason why you never, never, never should do an orthographic reform if there's already an existing classical orthography!

In japanese, as far as I've heart, there're also two kinds or reading
(pronouncing) a sign (kanji?), the japanese one and the chinese one.
One could complain about that, crying for a japanese orthographic reform. But I don't do that! If I would learn japanese, I would want to learn the real thing, not a some kind violated japanese writing!

The solution is very close to you, eito: Don't take the special writing of a german or especially english word as a code for pronounciation but as a sign for a meaning, as the kanjis in japanese writing. Every language maybe will end up there sometime. (That words are signs for meaning not code for pronounciation.)

But if you perform orthographical reforms, then you'll loose your traditional background, than you'll get exposed to all kind of manipulation, than you've lost yourself and your past. Than, you will also loose your identity, your future.

Bardioc : je suis moi aussi en faveur d'un certain conservatisme orthographique. Mais quand tu dis que « l'orthographe anglaise date de 500 ans », je pense que tu es un peu optimiste. Il a fallu attendre 1650 environ (il y a 350 ans) pour que les principes généraux se rapprochent sensiblement de ceux de la période contemporaine. En 1658 paraît « The new world of English words » où <logic> s'écrit encore <logick>, <grateful> <gratefull>, <authorised> <authoriz'd> et <harshness> <harshnesse>. Le premier livre publié en anglais s'appelle « Recuyell of the histories of Troie » (Caxton, 1476) : ça fait pas très anglais...

''Peeple today have to accept some changes before future generations say it's too late. Otherwise, German orthography will be left in chaos like Modern English.''

How can you know what future generations will say?

''Do Germans still prefer "Strike"(English spelling) to "Streik"(German spelling)? I hope not. If I were a speaker of German, I would spell "zentral", "Paragleiten", and "Hobbys".''

Germans ever perfered to write ''Streik'', because its the only correct spelling of that word. Why should germans still prefer english spellings?
The word ''zentral'' was spelled this way for many decades, maybe before 1901, it was spelled with ''c'' sometimes! I don't know how to actually write ''paragliding'' in german, I never had to use it, so it isn't worth to find a german word for that. Your proposal looks something odd to me. In englisch, if you write company, than the plural is companies.
I maybe also would write ''Hobbys''. But for the word Party, you could wirte ''Parties'' or ''Partys'' as well.

''I feel very sad for too many A-Umlauts and needlessly tripled consonant letters!''

Why that? The reformers like that!

''But the eszett(Sharp SS) rule has been simplifyed.''

Really? How can you know? In fact, the new rule only can be applied if you already know the classical one! If you learn just the new rule without knowing the classical (very simple) rules, than you'll make lots of very odd errors, e.g. writing words with double ss at the end where there must be just on simple s even according to the reform. Double s looks very ugly, especially at the end of a word! Even the Greeks have a special sort of s at the end of the words! So why not German?

''Loanwords can be spelled more fonetically.''

Why should I want to spell a loanword more phonetically? Thats more work to be done, because if I start to learn English or French, then I have to learn it the right way. Nowadays, EVERYBODY must learn English!

What's the difference between ph and f in phonetics? This is just two ways to write one sound. But this makes it easy to see the greek origin of a word. This might help you to get its meaning. In English, for certain sounds, there are many more ways to write them!

Is there a difference if I write an two-word englisch term e.g. the term ''science fiction'' in one word in reformed german. At least I must learn that this is written in two words if I start to learn Englisch! So reformed german forces the learners to do senseless learning effort. Yes, there would be a difference. Compounding means putting the stress on the first sillable of the first word.

Phonetic spelling is the wrong way. It results in one sequence of letters having many meanings, so texts will become ambiguous. That's the worst thing ever. In chinese and japanese, there are much words which sound equal. The speakers can distinguish them by the context. If you write them down using kanji, every meaning has its own kanji, even if the spoken word sounds equal to the others, so you know about the meaning even if there's no context! If you use phonetic writing in e.g. european languages, especially English, French or German, you get rid of informations which say something about the context!

''Like many peeple, I am somewhere in between.''

In between what? How can you know about that what other people are?

''I learned German many years ago.''

How many years? Before or after 1996?

''Mein Deutsch funktioniert nicht.''

Das merkt man!

''But if I had some opportunitys of writing something in German, if any, I might prefer older spellings with nostalgia, occasionally.''

Wasser predigen, aber selbst Wein trinken! (Preaching water but drinking wine!)

''Nevertheless, I am supportive of spelling reform.''

''Future generations will use the new orthography.''

In general, how can you know about what future generations will use?
How can you know about what future german generations will use? There in no ''new orthography'' in german. Actually, there are more than one -- that means non -- german orthographies! There is no ''the new german orthograhpy'' but many. There will be further changes in the future!

I will not say, "You must stop using your traditional stuff."

So why should I learn a new orthography? So why should anyone learn some new orthography?

Hé hé hé! mofmans! Don't act so agressive ...

greg Fri Sep 09, 2005 3:37 pm GMT
Bardioc : je suis moi aussi en faveur d'un certain conservatisme orthographique. Mais quand tu dis que « l'orthographe anglaise date de 500 ans », je pense que tu es un peu optimiste. Il a fallu attendre 1650 environ (il y a 350 ans) pour que les principes généraux se rapprochent sensiblement de ceux de la période contemporaine. En 1658 paraît « The new world of English words » où <logic> s'écrit encore <logick>, <grateful> <gratefull>, <authorised> <authoriz'd> et <harshness> <harshnesse>. Le premier livre publié en anglais s'appelle « Recuyell of the histories of Troie » (Caxton, 1476) : ça fait pas très anglais...

grec:

As my French is not so good, I like to anser to your post in English.

I read about the 500 years of contemprorary English orthography in an encyclopedia. Maybe this encyclopedia is wrong. I also have read about a date with 1?50 or so were the there was a transition in the english language. But I'm not sure if it was 1650! If it would been 1550 or 1450 than my 500 years would be a better estimation! Obviously there were minor adjustments also within that last hundredth of years, but I'm not sure. As far as I know, at that time, hundredth of years ago, educated english people prefered to speak French rather than English. English was abandoned for some hundredth of years, resulting e.g. in the loss of gender and case! There were massive borrowings of french words into the english language, too! Surprisingly, there were also words borrowed twice, at different times, respectively!

Things are always more complicated then they seem at first glance!

There's another important issue concerning orthographic reforms maybe helping you to get the point: If there are just a few people able to write 500 to 350 years ago, than, changing the spelling principals (note, I do not write orthography here) is much easier than if there is compulsory schooling for more than hundered years and about 100% degree of alphabetics in a society. Maybe, 350 to 500 years ago, everybody did write how it was pronounced in the dialect respectively, there was no codified (to eito: not codifyed) orthography or at least no codified orthography for the whole language. Maybe there wasn't a standard language at all. So doing some spelling changes to omit the oddest spellings is not the same than doing an orthographic reform nowadays!

As it was mentioned in another thread here in antimoon: Doing spelling reforms (or alphabet shifts) is easy if the majority of the population is gazing goats and sheeps.

=>As far as I know, at that time, hundredth of years ago, educated english people prefered to speak French rather than English. English was abandoned for some hundredth of years, resulting e.g. in the loss of gender and case! <=

Rubish.You obviously know nothing about the history of English.Do you honestly believe that present day English has been created in the last hundred years?!

=>English was abandoned for some hundredth of years<=

Do you honestly believe this?

It's not that agressive. Eitos posting is not very well considered. In germany, there are lots of people like him supporting a reform they don't know what it's all about. That's very provocative to me!

Sander: I read here in the forum that you should be ignored! That's true!

Bardioc : en tant qu'étranger, je suis absolument contre la nouvelle réforme de l'orthographe allemande. Je trouve l'ancienne excellente et très belle à regarder et à écrire.

Non, ton encyclopédie ne se trompe pas ! La fin du moyen-anglais se situe bien quelque part entre 1453 (défaite anglaise de Castillon-la-Bataille) et le début du XVIe siècle. Mais ça ne veut pas dire que l'orthographe de l'anglais moderne s'est fixée comme par enchantement dès 1500. Au contraire, ça a pris beaucoup plus de temps que ça.

La grande transition dont tu parles est peut-être la grande mutation vocalique (GMV) qui s'est déroulée entre le début XVIe et la fin XVIIe.

L'élite anglo-saxonne (mais aussi les classes moyennes) a dû apprendre l'ancien français d'outre-Manche et l'ancien français capétien pour pouvoir évoluer au sein d'une société gouvernée par des souverains francophones assistés d'une cour et d'une administration francophones (au moins pour un temps).

Le haut-moyen-anglais n'a pas été abandonné car la majorité anglo-saxonne n'a jamais cessé de le parler. Il est vrai en revanche que cette langue a presque disparu de la sphère écrite car les langues écrites officielles étaient le latin d'une part, l'ancien français d'outre-Manche et l'ancien français capétien (et bien un souvent un mélange des deux)d'autre part. C'est le moyen-anglais tardif, largement francisé et latinisé, qui succède au vieil-anglais écrit et supplante peu à peu les trois langues latines utilisées en Grande-Bretagne et en Irlande.

En ce qui concerne l'orthographe anglaise (tout comme l'orthographe allemande) ma religion est faite : je suis pour le statu quo (sauf quelques retouches et l'intégration des changements consacrés par l'usage ou éprouvés par le temps). Mon approche est globalement conservatrice.

bardioc : nächste Mal werde ich versuchen, auf Deutsch mit dir mich zu unterhalten.

=>Sander: I read here in the forum that you should be ignored! That's true! <=

I was a visitor of this forum long before those FrenchSpanish troll and you appeared.You might want to see how the forum work before insulting people right away.