When will English do "great spelling shift"?

Inglish   Fri Jun 12, 2009 3:27 am GMT
In history of English language, there is a Great Vowel Shift.
I am now thinking when there is a "great spelling reform" for the English language since their spelling is not irrelevant to their pronunciation. Unlike French,Spanish,German,Swedish,Portuguese, their spelling is relevant to their pronunciation.

Why English letter "a" in all English words has different pronunciation and why not all pronounced as [a] sound ?

Those opponents from English conservative who oppose English spelling reform are "doomed to fail" !
Skippy   Fri Jun 12, 2009 3:39 am GMT
I imagine it will be a long time. After English English and American English are no longer mutually intelligible, in my humble opinion.
Hsilgne   Fri Jun 12, 2009 9:40 am GMT
Who cares! English will no longer be an important language by then.
sun   Fri Jun 12, 2009 5:30 pm GMT
When the sun turns into a red giant.
nus   Fri Jun 12, 2009 5:36 pm GMT
<<I imagine it will be a long time. After English English and American English are no longer mutually intelligible, in my humble opinion. >>

I some cases, they're already unintelligible.

<<When the sun turns into a red giant. >>

Will this be before or after the collision with M31?
Guesto   Fri Jun 12, 2009 10:53 pm GMT
When swine flue mutates and wipes out humanity. This should occur in the next 12 days.
asdf   Fri Jun 12, 2009 11:27 pm GMT
>> I some cases, they're already unintelligible <<

Only some obscure regional dialects that were always hard to understand to begin with.
greg   Sun Jun 14, 2009 12:04 am GMT
Débat hors-sujet → tu t'es trompé de sous-forum.
Uriel   Sun Jun 14, 2009 8:02 pm GMT
I think we actually take a perverse delight in our ridiculous spelling -- it's kind of a badge of honor to have gotten through having to learn all that! There's no real sense that we should change it -- even the in the US, where we have pretty much dispensed with many -OUR (colour) and -RE (centre) and OE- (foetus) spellings and are working on phasing out a lot of -GUE spellings (I was familiar with dialogue and catalogue, but had really never seen "analogue" until Friday -- thought it was "analog" everywhere!). But Americans still cling just as strongly as anyone else to our silent P's, K's, and GH's (psychology, knife, and caught). True, draught has become "draft" here, but slough has never become "sluff". So even our contributions to spelling reform are patchy and haphazard at best. And we still have to count L's and T's and guess if it's "-ally" or just "-ly" sometimes.
Rick Johnson   Sun Jun 14, 2009 9:00 pm GMT
"I think we actually take a perverse delight in our ridiculous spelling -- it's kind of a badge of honor to have gotten through having to learn all that!"

As I've pointed out on here before, it's well worth having a look at some 17th Century British dictionaries they're full of 'American spellings' - honor, rumor, plow, center, theater etc. It would seem that all the US took one spelling while Britain retained the other rather than Americans changing the spelling (although there are some exceptions - analog, catalog etc).

When you think about it English still has plenty of dual spellings both sides of the Atlantic - judgement/judgment, acknowledgement/acknowledgment, biased/biassed, focused/focussed, gipsy/gypsy, adviser/advisor etc.
American   Sun Jun 14, 2009 10:37 pm GMT
>> When you think about it English still has plenty of dual spellings both sides of the Atlantic - judgement/judgment acknowledgement/acknowledgment biased/biassed, focused/focussed, gipsy/ gypsy, adviser/advisor etc <<

I would use the left spelling on all of those except for gypsy and advisor.
Travis   Sun Jun 14, 2009 11:30 pm GMT
>><<I imagine it will be a long time. After English English and American English are no longer mutually intelligible, in my humble opinion. >><<

Agreed completely. And even when they largely become mutually unintelligible, there will still be value in retaining a shared written language, as then Americans and Britons will still be able to understand each other in writing even if they will not be able to understand each other in speech.

>>I some cases, they're already unintelligible.<<

Only with particular, often rural dialects and particular chosen pairs of dialects. I for one at least can understand the vast majority of Britons whose speech I have heard just fine - even those that some have claimed needed subtitling (such as in Trainspotting - for being so unintelligible, it was not problematic at all to me).
Robin Michael   Mon Jun 15, 2009 12:58 am GMT
Slough

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs, and blow to smithereens
Those air-conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town --
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week for half-a-crown
For twenty years,

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears,

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sports and makes of cars
In various bogus Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

-- John Betjeman
eeuuian   Mon Jun 15, 2009 1:33 am GMT
<<even those that some have claimed needed subtitling (such as in Trainspotting - for being so unintelligible, it was not problematic at all to me). >>

Here's a clip with a strong Scots accent. Even with the guidance of the subitles, I can't understand much of what this guy is saying:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v1jmVvF4gM&feature=channel_page

Here's a problematic US Accent, although more intelligible than the Scottish accent:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGcWNI6TyXg

This one almost sounds like English.
.   Mon Jun 15, 2009 6:00 am GMT
It is a problem


People recruited to do community work have to be able to understand and communicate with such people. Community workers also have to understand big words.


Communication