<<Many words in English are spelled the way they were pronounced 500 years ago or more. Spelling reform has not always kept pace with changes in pronunciation. In Gaelic (Irish & Scottish), the discrepancy is even greater; these languages have brought their spelling systems up to about the 11th century. French and German have updated their spelling systems several times and it has taken government decrees to do it.>>
What's wrong with that languages bring their spelling systems up form a maybe distant past?
In Irish and Scottish, there are two variants of each consonant, yielding different meanings. Rather than inventing two different characters to designate each of this variants, they developed a means to mark these variants with just the ordinary characters. So there are characters in gaelic words which are not intended to be pronounced as characters by its onw, they serve just to do this distinction.
French orthography reform was almost completely discarded, as far as I have heard, and the future of the so-called german ''Rechtschreibreform'' is not really clear yet.
The german spelling system was not updated several times, as you stated, and the ''Rechtschreibreform'' actually doesn't ''update'' the spelling system ''to keep pace with pronounciation''.
Since german Rechtschreibung was unified for about hundered years ago, there're hardly changes in the pronounciation. Classical german orthography was very close to pronounciation and very close to actual developments of the language due to the Duden editorial department updated this dictionary on the research they did on the language's development. Yes, there are opinions that they were more precise or more thoroughly as needed, but all in all, classical german orthography was very close to the actual language.
The situation of the german language is quite different from that of enlisch language as german is not spread all over the world and not used as lingua france in different cultures, so changes in pronounciation are less likely.
In 1901, german orthography was first unified, so you can't call that a reform in its proper sense, because to reform something needs that the thing to be reformed already exist, otherwise it would be the initial formation of such a thing. During world war II, there was an attempt to perform an orthographic reform, called the ''Rustsche Reform'' but was discarded because this wasn't relevant to win the war. Today's Rechtschreibreform resembles this Rustsche Reform in many ways and moreover reintroduces forms form over hundered years ago. So actually, the Rechtschreibreform ''downdates'' german orthography. Note that there's no real change in pronounciation over the last decades, but Rechtschreibreform tries to impose a change in stressing compound words so that they fall apart. A compound word in German is usually stressed on the first syllable. Rechtschreibreform prescribes some compounds to be written in two words, which implies to stress them in a different way, even if they then will have another meaning. Note also, that german Rechtschreibreform rapes english ''compound words'', e.g. science fiction, in that sense, that they now should written as one word. Nobody in germany ever had problems with writing english terms like science fiction in the way it is written in normal english. It therefore doesn't make sense to write them as one word, and, on the other hand, write german compounds in two or more words instead of one word as the stressing rules of german language would imply. There's also a tendency in german language towards compounding. So german Rechtschreibreform is an act of prescription and language planning against the nature of the language and the people.
Doesn't it makes you think that there must be governmental decrees to do such reforms, as you stated? To be precise, german orthographic reform was not forced by governmental decree, but by decree of the ministers of education. In Germany, the responsibility for cultural affairs is on the level of the federal states. As different federal states have diverging political directions, me wonders how they can speak with one voice to impose an orthographical reform? Also consider, that the reform was introduced overnight two years earlier than intended and that the public didn't know about the actual changes before.
What's wrong with that languages bring their spelling systems up form a maybe distant past?
In Irish and Scottish, there are two variants of each consonant, yielding different meanings. Rather than inventing two different characters to designate each of this variants, they developed a means to mark these variants with just the ordinary characters. So there are characters in gaelic words which are not intended to be pronounced as characters by its onw, they serve just to do this distinction.
French orthography reform was almost completely discarded, as far as I have heard, and the future of the so-called german ''Rechtschreibreform'' is not really clear yet.
The german spelling system was not updated several times, as you stated, and the ''Rechtschreibreform'' actually doesn't ''update'' the spelling system ''to keep pace with pronounciation''.
Since german Rechtschreibung was unified for about hundered years ago, there're hardly changes in the pronounciation. Classical german orthography was very close to pronounciation and very close to actual developments of the language due to the Duden editorial department updated this dictionary on the research they did on the language's development. Yes, there are opinions that they were more precise or more thoroughly as needed, but all in all, classical german orthography was very close to the actual language.
The situation of the german language is quite different from that of enlisch language as german is not spread all over the world and not used as lingua france in different cultures, so changes in pronounciation are less likely.
In 1901, german orthography was first unified, so you can't call that a reform in its proper sense, because to reform something needs that the thing to be reformed already exist, otherwise it would be the initial formation of such a thing. During world war II, there was an attempt to perform an orthographic reform, called the ''Rustsche Reform'' but was discarded because this wasn't relevant to win the war. Today's Rechtschreibreform resembles this Rustsche Reform in many ways and moreover reintroduces forms form over hundered years ago. So actually, the Rechtschreibreform ''downdates'' german orthography. Note that there's no real change in pronounciation over the last decades, but Rechtschreibreform tries to impose a change in stressing compound words so that they fall apart. A compound word in German is usually stressed on the first syllable. Rechtschreibreform prescribes some compounds to be written in two words, which implies to stress them in a different way, even if they then will have another meaning. Note also, that german Rechtschreibreform rapes english ''compound words'', e.g. science fiction, in that sense, that they now should written as one word. Nobody in germany ever had problems with writing english terms like science fiction in the way it is written in normal english. It therefore doesn't make sense to write them as one word, and, on the other hand, write german compounds in two or more words instead of one word as the stressing rules of german language would imply. There's also a tendency in german language towards compounding. So german Rechtschreibreform is an act of prescription and language planning against the nature of the language and the people.
Doesn't it makes you think that there must be governmental decrees to do such reforms, as you stated? To be precise, german orthographic reform was not forced by governmental decree, but by decree of the ministers of education. In Germany, the responsibility for cultural affairs is on the level of the federal states. As different federal states have diverging political directions, me wonders how they can speak with one voice to impose an orthographical reform? Also consider, that the reform was introduced overnight two years earlier than intended and that the public didn't know about the actual changes before.