Radical spelling reform or partial modification?

eito(jpn)   Mon Aug 22, 2005 10:52 pm GMT
Which do you like, radical spelling reform or partial modification? I prefer the latter. Radical spelling reform is something like creating another language. What do you think?
Travis   Mon Aug 22, 2005 11:21 pm GMT
In one way I prefer radical orthographic reform, and no, I do not think it is at all like creating a language from scratch at all, but the problem is that in the case of English, such just does not seem practically possible on an across-the-board basis, simply because English does have a large range of varying dialects and because such dialects do not all exist in a single coherent dialect continuum, making trying to artificially construct an "average" form off of which a new orthography would be based spelling-wise extremely difficult. In the case of English, any sort of non-superficial orthographic reform can most likely only be at the local level, as it may only be targeted at a relatively narrow range of dialects, and furthermore would go against the idea of English sharing a single written form, overall, which allows individuals who may have very different speech forms to still understand each other at least relatively well in writing. This might seem like a reason for more moderate orthographic reform, but for me at least, that is rather pointless simply because it is unlikely to truly solve the problems of English orthography, as such may likely require redesigning English orthography from the ground up in the first place.
greg   Tue Aug 23, 2005 12:53 am GMT
Je suis pour le statu quo.
Travis   Tue Aug 23, 2005 1:12 am GMT
For formal writing, yes, as much as I know that such will in the long run probably become like Chinese characters in nature one way or another, which ironically is the primary reason to actually keep it; people will be likely reading and writing formal English not that different from this being written right now a few hundred years in the future, even if they will likely *pronounce* it extremely differently than we do, and actually speak dialects which will likely be further from it than many used today. The reason is not conservatism for its own sake, but rather for the purposes of preserving a single formal literary language, even if such may in the future have to be purely learned in nature, and not inherently fully intelligible if actually read aloud from the standpoint of the dialects many will likely speak. Just for example, I would bet that many today would more easily understand Jonathan Swift's writing than how the equivalent would have actually spoken at the time such was written, especially one considers things beyond simply formal speech.

For less formal writing, I am very much for radical orthographic reform, for the simple reason that such reform really can only apply to a limited range of dialects, for instance, the NAE continuum, and as such writing is not formal, the whole idea of such being easily readable by others who one may not or would not be able to communicate that easily with *in speech* in the first place is not nearly as much of an overriding concern. At the same time, outside of relatively limited areas of literature where such things are likely to show up, such as poetry and like, such is probably only likely to be used for quite informal applications, be they taking notes or chatting or translating books into local forms (a sort of genre one may see in various places like Germany and France) or whatnot, until actual large dialect groups truly become separate enough that they can actually be seriously called separate languages, which is a quite long ways off. At that point, across the board orthographic reform becomes much more possible, as we have seen with Afrikaans gaining an orthography separate from Dutch orthography, but again, then such would be limited to any given separate language within this new Anglic language group, for obvious reasons.
Mxsmanic   Tue Aug 23, 2005 5:08 am GMT
I don't see any reason for any spelling reform. English spelling just isn't that difficult. In general, a person's ability to spell is a direct function of his reading vocabulary, so as one improves one's vocabulary, one's spelling improves as well. There's no need to reform anything. Once one has a decent vocabulary, one can correctly guess the spelling of just about any new word to which one is exposed in speech.
Sanja   Wed Aug 24, 2005 3:17 pm GMT
I always agree with Mxsmanic when it comes to this subject :)
Sander   Wed Aug 24, 2005 3:26 pm GMT
I agree as well, English is fine the way it is now.
Uriel   Wed Aug 24, 2005 8:15 pm GMT
It's too late now. We're stuck with the spelling.
american nic   Wed Aug 24, 2005 8:30 pm GMT
How is it too late? When did we cross that line?

I guess we could remain complacent, and allow spoken forms to drift further and further away from the written form, eventually becoming about as similar as spoken Chinese is to its written form. I figure as long as people learn to read eventually, spending many years getting the subtleties of it down is perfectly acceptable...
Travis   Wed Aug 24, 2005 10:36 pm GMT
It's too late in that English dialects have sufficiently diverged that it would be hard to reconcile them or to create an artificial "average" of them, for the purposes of creating a new orthography and possibly a whole new literary language; the main thing is that English no longer exists as a continuous dialect continuum, but rather a number of different discontinuous dialect continua. And yes, at this point, spoken forms will almost certain drift increasingly away from written forms until, yes, the actual words as they are written will have as much meaning with respect to actual pronunciation as Chinese characters do (and yes, actually, Chinese characters often do have pronunciation cues in the *but* these pronunciation cues are for Middle Chinese, not the different modern Chinese languages). Due to this, the only time we will actually be able to really create a whole new orthography and probably a whole new literary language to start with, for any given section of what would be descended from English today, is when English actually manages to fully break up into distinctly separate languages. But even then, as I've said, it might be useful to still keep around the classical English language, even though it would almost certainly be solely a written language at that point.
Uriel   Wed Aug 24, 2005 10:57 pm GMT
Well, I suppose I could see all the pointless gh's go without crying too much.
Travis   Wed Aug 24, 2005 11:08 pm GMT
The main thing is that while, yes, we could remove the "gh"s, the matter of the whole situation is simply that I don't see much *point* in such superficial changes. The reason why I want orthographic reform myself is to fix the entire orthography throughout its entire whole, and make it systematic, clean, and truly phonemic for *at least* some reconstructed common historical forms or some artificially constructed "average". I do not want any half-measures, and I do not see them as having much more value unto themselves than the orthography that we have already, as if we are to throw out the current orthography, in which so much has already been written, at least we should end up with a new orthography that is far superior, in the present context, to that we currently have. Why have to teach individuals to read two different sets of orthographic forms if the new ones aren't much better than the old ones, from our current perspective?
Uriel   Wed Aug 24, 2005 11:28 pm GMT
But your stuff is hard to read, Travis.
Travis   Wed Aug 24, 2005 11:34 pm GMT
It's hard for two reasons: first, you probably haven't learned the underlying system, second, when I write using my system I am normally simply writing in formal speech for *my own dialect*, and third, my system is provisional in that it is only designed to accomodate a relatively limited range of English dialects, and is not designed to serve as a single orthography for all of English.

Its haard foor tu riesins: ferst, ju prababli haevynt lernd dha anderlaiing sistam, sekkind, hwen ai rait juusing mai sistam ai aem noormalli simpli raiting in foormyl spietj foor *mai oon daiallekt*, aend therd, mai sistam is pravizjinnyl in dhaet it is oonli desaind tu akkamaddeet a rellattivli limmittid reendj av ingglisj daiallekts, aend is naat desaind tu serv aes a singgyl oorthaagraffi foor ol av ingglisj.

(Sorry, I couldn't help myself there ;)
Sander   Wed Aug 24, 2005 11:52 pm GMT
You have given me a great idea Travis!!!