spelling reform

<,The solution is to standardize on a particular dialect. This is what is done for other languages that have an orthography which closely matches the spoken pronunciation. >>

The solution is to craft a system that is not necesasarily strictly phonetic, but one that can accommodate dialectal variation rather than put it on display.

I do not need to know from orthography EXACTLY how a person in another dialect pronounces each word, as if I ever were going to pronounce it just the same. All that's needed is a common written form--the spoken can still be a little different. When an Englishman says "pasta" with a flat 'a' in "cat", I know what he's saying. We don't need a marker to indicate his pronunciation as different from mine and so on.

The current system does this well, but it has too many inconsistencies. The inconsistencies can be reduced or eliminated and voila there you have it.

>>The solution is to standardize on a particular dialect. This is what is done for other languages that have an orthography which closely matches the spoken pronunciation<<

The matter is then you privilege one dialect over all other dialects. Even when it comes to national standard varieties, I doubt people who do not speak the chosen standard variety would appreciate their favored standard variety not being chosen.

>>The solution is to craft a system that is not necesasarily strictly phonetic, but one that can accommodate dialectal variation rather than put it on display.

I do not need to know from orthography EXACTLY how a person in another dialect pronounces each word, as if I ever were going to pronounce it just the same. All that's needed is a common written form--the spoken can still be a little different. When an Englishman says "pasta" with a flat 'a' in "cat", I know what he's saying. We don't need a marker to indicate his pronunciation as different from mine and so on.

The current system does this well, but it has too many inconsistencies. The inconsistencies can be reduced or eliminated and voila there you have it.<<

If one were to create a new system from scratch, one would want such to actually have a linguistic basis rather than to be purely arbitrary and graphical in nature, which is essentially what I would be for were such feasible. But failing that, the current orthography really does not fail to achieve that goal that badly, considering that much of what it represents is largely based off of southeastern Late Middle English pronunciation to begin with.

<<The current system does this well, but it has too many inconsistencies. The inconsistencies can be reduced or eliminated and voila there you have it.>>

<<If one were to create a new system from scratch, one would want such to actually have a linguistic basis rather than to be purely arbitrary and graphical in nature, which is essentially what I would be for were such feasible.>>

These ''inconsistencies'' are due to the course of history and therefore show an historical process. (BTW, that's something many people are proud of!) That's what gives the written form of English its unique flavour. That's -- in a certain sense -- what defines English orthography. To reform it means to destroy it! You would therefore end up with an orthography similar to the ones devised for small indigenious cultural groups which most recently got an -- often linguistically based -- orthography for the first time. So, English orthography would get the look of such a language without literal tradition. (BTW, no orthography is purely arbitrary in nature. What do you mean by graphical here?)

That is much of the reason why I am against reforming English orthography in the first place these days, actually.

As for the "inconsistencies", though, were serious English orthographic reform possible I would be against ones that are merely typographical in nature, as opposed to ones resulting from diachronic processes, which is exactly what I would be *for* representing in any reformed English orthography.

<,The solution is to standardize on a particular dialect. This is what is done for other languages that have an orthography which closely matches the spoken pronunciation. >>

... of that special dialect.

As you aren't a native speaker, you don't care about dialectal diversity. For you, one dialect is as good as the other. You just pick up one and tag it with the language name.

If there is one major dialect and several marginal ones, and if that's the first time that special language gets an orthography, than this would be the best choice. But English already owns an orthography for hundreds of years, very much literature and is split up in several major dialect groups ... there are also hundreds of millions of non-native speakers.

<<... as opposed to ones resulting from diachronic processes, which is exactly what I would be *for* representing in any reformed English orthography.>>

Excuse me, isn't nowadays English orthography resulting form diachronic processes, is it?

>><<... as opposed to ones resulting from diachronic processes, which is exactly what I would be *for* representing in any reformed English orthography.>>

Excuse me, isn't nowadays English orthography resulting form diachronic processes, is it?<<

In very many ways, yes, but the matter is that it is not entirely consistent in such graphically; it does not form a consistent representation of (southeastern) Late Middle English phonology, nor a subset of such not including aspects thereof which do not concern any extant English dialects (such as historical word-final C:V forms where the V was lost, such as in LME "sunne", which could be treated as if it were just "sun"). Take the words "live" and "give" for instance; one would expect them to have represented LME /liːvə/ and /giːvə/ respectively, which would have become RP and GA /laɪ̯v/ and /gaɪ̯v/ respectively. Yet, such are graphical inconsistencies as such clearly did not have /iː/ but rather /ɪ/ and thus are RP and GA /lɪv/ and /gɪv/; the matter was that typographers of the time did not feel comfortable ending a word in "v", and thus retained the "e" not as a reminder of a preceding open syllable which would have given rise to a long vowel but rather just as a typographical feature.

Why does it need to be entirely consistent, why does it need to form a consistent representation of (southeastern) Late Middle English phonology?

<<... the matter was that typographers of the time did not feel comfortable ending a word in "v", ...>>

This '' did not feel comfortable with ending a word in 'v' '' is a diachronic process (or something comparable), they decided one direction and not the other because to them, the selected direction felt better than the other. In spoken language similar things happen all the time.

Is it possible to form an entirely consistent orthography? I think no! These inconsistencies are part of the diachronic processes. And what is an entirely consistent orthography? Why does it need to be consistent with the spoken language? Written language forms a kind of ''dialect'' of its own!

Language isn't just spoken languages, see the sign languages!

Just so you know, when I am referring to diachronics here I am solely referring to such on a linguistic level, for the sake of producing an orthography that can be fairly and consistently applied to any present-day English dialect rather than merely prescribing a given standard variety. I myself have little concern with preserving the history of English typography, which was actually remarkably inconsistent up until about the time of Samuel Johnson, and much of whose current state is quite arbitrary to say the very least.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typography

If language emerged without linguistics, and writing systems emerged without linguistics, why do we need linguistics for the sake of ''producing'' an orthography?

So we can create an orthography that applies well to a wide range of dialects in a fair fashion, obviously. That simply is something that you cannot do without having a strong linustic background for it. Just because people created orthographies in the past without a real linguistic basis does not mean that it is a good idea to do so today now that linguistics has actually been developed as a social science.

Would there actually be any practical benefits of having a spelling reform? No! The only people worried about that are 7 year old kids and ESLers, everyone else just uses a spelling checker. 7 year kids do shit all in school anyway so it's hardly going to damage their brains, and ESLers can just deal with it. It would be such a huge task and so pointless!

Leave well alone! SPEL* dicates that we do just that, so there! The English Language is a precious commodity and it must remain untarnished by unwarranted orhographical messing about in some kind of reform simply to pander to the desires of a dumbed down society.

As I've said before in this Forum on a number of occasions one of the joys of our wonderful Language is its inconsistencies and irregularities, and so it must remain.

Of course what you do with it in your own particular country, where English is the main means of communication, is your own business entirely and you are at liberty to just what you like in the meddling and mucking about with it to suit your own ends, but right here, in the very birthplace of the English Language, it will remain just as it is.

Learners of British English will just have to cope with all the delightfully quirky vicissitudes of the Queen's English. It conforms with or national characteristics for one thing! ;-)

*SPEL: Society for the Protection of the English Language.

Britain is a land full of protecive societies! We even have one for bees, currently an endangered species due to a virus infection. Do you realise that it would be disastrous for humankind if the bee population died out? Our food chain would be deciminated.

Check your hives - I don't mean your skin condition....

Well, of course English orthographic reform is completely impractical and unrealistic in reality; I was just stating that were one to have such, I would strongly favor something that essentially represented Late Middle English so as to be as dialect-neutral as feasibly possible rather than trying to actually represent any modern dialect.