Spelling Reform Proposal

Lazar   Wed Dec 05, 2007 4:08 am GMT
I think one silly thing is the fact that even our current orthography contains capricious non-phonological national variations, like "-our, -or", "-ize, -ise", or "travelling, traveling". I would be in favor of a unified English orthography, rendering the whole English-speaking world one "spelling sphere", in which spelling conventions will be identical regardless of dialectal variations in phonology or vocabulary (much like the current situation of intra-US or intra-UK dialectal diversity). My preference would be for a standard based on conservative Commonwealth usage, because I think it has more internal consistency (many of the American reforms have been implemented inconsistently, as you can see in pairs like "counselor, chancellor", "center, mediocre", "install, annul") and a greater claim to universality.
Lazar   Wed Dec 05, 2007 4:41 am GMT
Haha, I know. I can have my own house style, though. :)
Travis   Wed Dec 05, 2007 5:09 am GMT
If we are to go that route, though, I would tend to favor a spelling that is largely a conservative Commonwealth spelling but which avoids some of the weirder Commonwealth spellings such as "gaol" and which eschews things such as "-re" and "-our" instead of "-er" and "-or" (and of course has "-ize" and "-yze" instead of "-ise" and "-yse" except in cases where the latter are actually etymologically correct).
Lazar   Wed Dec 05, 2007 5:29 am GMT
Yeah, "gaol" would be a tough sell (even though it does have retro appeal for me), but I would prefer "-re" because it's almost always closer to the etymological source. One thing that I find jarring about the American orthography is the fact that -re was left unreformed after "c", giving us relics like "mediocre" and "acre" which should have been reformed as "medioker" and "aker". I think that if when we have a grapheme like "-re", it should either be used consistently as a productive suffix or discarded entirely, not retained as a rare relic. I would go for "-ize" and "-yse": "-ize" is definitely etymologically preferable, whereas "-yze/-yse" is a tossup because it's a made-up verbal suffix that didn't exist in Greek.

And I would prefer some etymologically preferable spellings that have become rare in Commonwealth usage, like "connexion" or "phantasy". One (other) thing that bugs me about modern spelling is that there is a subset of "phant-" words, namely "[ph/f]antasy, [ph/f]antastic, [ph/f]antasm, [ph/f]antom, [ph/f]antast", all of which have two possible spellings in English (you can see "fantasm" and "fantom" attested at dictionary.com), and all of which consistently have "fant-" in their French cognates and "phant-" in their German cognates, but standard English usage has decided to randomly use "fant-" for some and "phant-" for others. I find that aesthetically dissonant. I would go for "phant-" in all those words, but even using "fant-" in all of them would be preferable to the current system.
Lazar   Wed Dec 05, 2007 5:54 am GMT
I think I would be more sparse with diacritics. I would keep "résumé", but I think I would prefer the nativized "role, naive, naivety" over "rôle, naïve, naïveté" (the last one's not purely a spelling issue though).
Guest   Wed Dec 05, 2007 6:53 am GMT
What about words like:

faeces, feces, fæces

Why is æ not used anymore?
Guest   Wed Dec 05, 2007 7:10 am GMT
demon , daemon, dæmon, daimon

Which one would you choose? And by the way, they all are pronounced the saмe, coгrect?
Travis   Wed Dec 05, 2007 4:01 pm GMT
>>coöperate (though 'noöne' looks kind of weird)<<

Of course, in the present orthography, "no one" is written out as two words even though it is stressed as if it were one. I myself would actually support not just "noöne" but also the systematic use of the diaeresis as in Dutch and French orthography in English orthography (and think that the loss of the diaeresis in English orthography was a step backwards).
greg   Wed Dec 05, 2007 9:12 pm GMT
Lazar : « [...] "-ize" is definitely etymologically preferable [...] ».

Ça se discute.

AF → ancien français
MA → moyen-angalis

Tous les étymons sont des verbes, sauf spécification contraire (nom).

Tous les verbes français sont à la première personne de l'indicatif présent, sauf indication contraire : (sp) → première personne du subjonctif présent




1414 : Fr <reconois> (sp)<reconoisse> → MA <recunysse> <recunisse> <recognisen> → pas de grec

1431 : AF (nom)<exercice> (nom)<exercise> (nom)<excercice> → MA (nom)<exercice> (nom)<exercise> → MA (verbe)<exercisen> (verbe)<excersycen> → pas de grec
MA : Which þridde power is þe fantastik witt forto exercise þe werk and office now last seid.
MA : Hys offys to excersyce vnder hym.

1425 : MF <pulvérise> → MA <pulverisen> → pas de grec
MA : Þe oþer þingez wele ypuluerised

1555 : MF <temporise> → MA <temporen> & An <temporise> → pas de grec

1601 : Fr <civilise> → An <civilise> → pas de grec

1609 : Fr <verbalise> → An <verbalise> → pas de grec

1611 : Fr <fraternise> → An <fraternise> → pas de grec

1611 : Fr <réalise> → An <realise> → pas de grec

1634 : Fr <agrandis> (sp)<agrandisse> → An <aggrandise> → pas de grec

XVIIIe : Fr <brutalise> → An <brutalise> → pas de grec

XVIIIe : Fr <humanise> → An <humanise> → pas de grec

1759 : Fr <neutralise> → An <neutralise> → pas de grec

XIXe : Fr <centralise> → An <centralise> → pas de grec

1802 : Fr <galvanise> → An <galvanise> → pas de grec

1804 : Fr <paralyse> → An <paralyse> → pas de grec

1811 : Fr <polarise> → An <polarise> → pas de grec

1829 : Fr <mesmérise> → An <mesmerise> → pas de grec

après 1836 ( ?) : Fr <helléniser> → An <Hellenise> → pas de grec (!)

1838 : Fr <mobilise> → An <mobilise> → pas de grec

1861 : Fr <stabilise> → An <stabilise> → pas de grec

1869 : Fr <nationalise> → An <nationalise> → pas de grec

1880 : Fr <materialise> → An <materialise> → pas de grec

1881 : Fr <pasteurise> → An <pasteurise> → pas de grec

1950 ( ?) : Fr <criminalise> → An <criminalise> → pas de grec

XXe : Fr <satellise> → An ?<satellise> ?<satellize> → pas de grec

? : Fr <grécise> → An <Grecise> → pas de grec (!)
Guest   Thu Dec 06, 2007 4:25 am GMT
Why does etymology matter? It's pronounced [aIz] not [aIs], so it's better to spell it with a "z".
Lazar   Thu Dec 06, 2007 4:44 am GMT
<<pas de grec...pas de grec...pas de grec...etc>>

Greg, I never said that those words were of Greek origin, I said the *ending* was of Greek origin (and obviously this doesn't apply to "exercise", or "recognize", or even "analyze"). In Latin (or Neo-Latin), that ending would be spelled with a "z" - civilizare, criminalizare, nationalizare, etc.
Guest   Thu Dec 06, 2007 4:58 am GMT
"<s>=/z/ in many English words."

Just because a problem already exists doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to limit its spread.
furrykef   Thu Dec 06, 2007 11:36 am GMT
Native speakers generally don't see that as a problem.
greg   Thu Dec 06, 2007 4:36 pm GMT
« Guest » : « It's pronounced [aIz] not [aIs], so it's better to spell it with a "z". »

Dans ce cas il faudrait réécrire comme suit : <surprized>, <rainy daiz>, <he goez>, <he'z been>, <orangez>, <compromizing>.
Travis   Thu Dec 06, 2007 4:59 pm GMT
>>Yuck. I'll stick with <s>, thanks.<<

Heh - in my attempts to create the basis, at least idea-wise, for a true standard English orthography (if a very radical one), I actually introduced word-final <z>, as in <surpráizd>, <reini deiz>, <hy gooz>, <hyz byn>, <orendjiz>, and <kompremaizing>. I had been not using <z> except in prevocalic positions, and instead used <s> for /z/ and <ss> for /s/ when not adjacent to a fortis obstruent (where then I had /s/ for /s/), but these had their own problems, as I was already using consonant doubling to mark vowel quality/length (which required workarounds), and also it is theoretically possible to have sequences like /zt/ which even though the undergo voicing assimilation they make the preceding vowel long rather than short. After asking some people, they actually thought word-final <z> was a good idea, and it does actually simplify orthographic design a lot, even though I still think it looks ugly.