Radical spelling reform or partial modification?

Sander   Fri Sep 09, 2005 6:08 pm GMT
Point is,the forum could use an intelligent German.As an expansion of the Germanic language section.But Germans never stay long or become regulars. (most of them leave because trolls make remarks about the 2nd WW as soon as they are proven wrong)

Do you have what it takes?
Candy   Fri Sep 09, 2005 6:26 pm GMT
>>English was abandoned for some hundredth of years, resulting e.g. in the loss of gender and case! >>

As greg points out, only the ruling class of England 'abandoned' English. The vast majority of English people never did, of course, or English would have ceased to exist many centuries ago. From 1066 to at least the end of the 14th century, the English royalty and nobility spoke French, or at least Anglo-French. (many of them could speak English too, but the language of the court was French). It is believed that the first king of England after 1066 who was a *native* English speaker was Henry V (reigned 1413 to 1422) In this period, the number of French-speakers in England was no more than a few thousand, and the majority of people did not learn French.
English was fairly rare as a written language in the 150 years or so after the Norman Conquest of 1066, but certainly not non-existent. There's a chronicle written around the year 1155, and in the 90 years since the Conquest you can really see the diference - no gender or case, as far as I remember.
Personally, I find it fascinating that England hasn't always been a monolingual country - I can't imagine it! (Englnad was trilingual in the Middle Ages - the Church spoke Latin)
Candy   Fri Sep 09, 2005 6:30 pm GMT
Errata above

Englnad ;( doh!

diference: difference
Bardioc   Mon Sep 12, 2005 1:54 pm GMT
I did not mean that the majority of the English people abandoned their language, I actually meant ''English was abandoned by the scholars of these days''. That's what I once read about the history of the English language!

You may not forget that besides the languages mentioned, there were also some celtic languages languages in Britain. Some of them does still exist,
others are extinct. But there are efforts to revive them. In former times, there was also the language of the Picts. I don't know where this language belongs to.
Sander   Mon Sep 12, 2005 3:17 pm GMT
Pictish was probably a Brythonic language.
eito   Mon Sep 12, 2005 6:28 pm GMT
In response to Bardioc

German ever preferred to write "Streik" and "zentral". Why? Because your ancestors made a decision to write many words according to the German way of spelling. You should be grateful to your ancestors who carryed out some reforms. I'm sure you are. But you oppose further spelling reform?

When I started learning German(before 1996), I was told that we could not use "ss" at the end of any words and told to use "eszett" at the end. That rule must be very simple if we could ignore vowel length.

F or PH? Not even a reform, but a "de-regulation". Nobody will be arrested if they use PH. Please continue to use it.

"Peeple" has nothing to do with "peep". Additionally, "country" has nothing to do with "count". In some cases, fonetic spelling is not acceptable, but not every case.

"Wasser predigen, aber selbst Wein trinken!"
The Japanese language has changed drastically since the end of the second world war. Usage of hiragana became more fonetic, easier for children to learn. As for Kanji(Chinese caracters used in Japanese), caracters of many strokes were simplifyed. The elderly continued to write according to their way that they had learned. Of course they could continue. But now many of us, or almost all, use simplifyed Japanese. It is natural.
Bardioc   Tue Sep 13, 2005 9:17 am GMT
''German ever preferred to write "Streik" and "zentral". Why? Because your ancestors made a decision to write many words according to the German way of spelling.''

You shouldn't see this in that simple way. Maybe there once was a time the word ''zentral'' could also have been spelled ''central''. See it like that: If there's a new word borrowed form another language starting to spread within a certain language, then it depends on many factors how it will finally be pronounced and spelled. It depends on how many people have some active knowledge of the language it is borrowed form. If there are only a few, the word gets most likely adopted to the borrowing languages pronounciation and spelling over the decades. But if almost everyone is able to speak fluently the language the word is borrowed form, than its most likely that the borrowed word stays in its original pronounciation and spelling. That's only natural, because why should one ''invent'' a new pronounciation and spelling if everybody knows about the correct one? Have you ever heart from economy in language (german: Sprachökonomie)? According to the classical german orthography, the german word for ''circus'' should be spelled ''Zirkus''! (I don't know about how it must be spelled according to ''Rechtschreibreform''.) But look at the advertisment placards, if a circus comes to town: You'll find most likely ''Circus''! You must give people time to work out how a new word should be finally spelled! This is called a ''descriptive approach''! Reforming an already existing spelling is called a ''prescriptive approach''.
That's what you recommend! Scientifically, only a descriptive approach is of linguistic value, the prescriptive approach is linguistically worthless!
Bardioc   Tue Sep 13, 2005 10:11 am GMT
''You should be grateful to your ancestors who carryed out some reforms. I'm sure you are. But you oppose further spelling reform?''

If you want to ''reform'' something, you need an already existing form, which then is to be changed. Reforming something means to form something again.

Actually, in 1901, there was a unification of already existing spellings. You can't see this as a reform. The reformers themselves claim it was a reform, of course.

During world war II, there was an attempt to reform german orthography, the socalled ''Rustsche Reform'', which was strongly influenced by national socialistic ideology. This attempt of a reform was cancelled by Hitler because a spelling reform was not important to win the war.

After the war, back in the fifties, there were further attempts for a reform, but it failed. These attempts were inspired by socialistic ideology, aiming to omit capitalization of nouns.

Do you want to read and write in an ideologically influenced style?

The acutal reform form 1996 is influenced by ideology, too. They aimed to omit capitalization but this was not allowed by the ministers of education (german: Kultusminister). So today, according to the Rechtschreibreform, much more words are capitalized then before, also words which are clearly not nouns. Several features are taken from the Rustsche Reform and others are outdated for over 100 or 200 years.
The double s spelling now exumed was outdated since 1901.
Although german is a language heavily makes usage of compounding, the Rechtschreibreform forces several compounds to be splitted by hypen or to be written as separate words, even if they change meaning. So, actually, you can't convey certain meaning using reformed rules. In other cases, meaning can change by 180 degrees if a word is capitalized, i.e. leid vs. Leid! This are only a few exemples on how rediculous this reform is. There are much more!

So german ''Rechtschreibreform'' is an ideological driven step backwards!

''When I started learning German(before 1996), I was told that we could not use "ss" at the end of any words and told to use "eszett" at the end.

Yes, that's good classical german orthography! As german is a language heavily makes use of compounding, as I mentioned earlier, and as there are many words starting with s, this rule avoids three consecutive s letters, which is very difficult to read. With the ß, you easily can recognize the end of the preceding and the start of the following word.

That rule must be very simple if we could ignore vowel length.''

What do you mean by that?

Vowel lenth is in most cases not significant. But there are a few cases where it is: Buße vs Busse, Maße vs Masse. The ß is used to distinguish!
Bardioc   Tue Sep 13, 2005 10:25 am GMT
''F or PH? Not even a reform, but a "de-regulation". Nobody will be arrested if they use PH. Please continue to use it.''

Before the deregulation of german broadcasting law, looking TV was wonderful. After deregulation, everything became very nasty, so that I avoid looking TV since year 2000. Since then, I feel much better!

That what you call ''deregulation'' conceals the Greek origin of the word.
Greek lacks of such a letter combination, indeed, but in latin transscription the ph is used to designate aspiration. And as we use latin letters, we also should use the ph in words of Greek origin. This also makes it easier to learn e.g. English. And English must be learnt by almost everyone. So why making effort to invent and to learn spellings which aren't the real thing?

Another reason: Nowadays, there's a need for many new words. If both, f and ph, can stand for the same, so you waste some possible syllables, which otherwise could have other meanings.
Bardioc   Tue Sep 13, 2005 10:41 am GMT
Citation: "Peeple" has nothing to do with "peep". Additionally, "country" has nothing to do with "count". In some cases, fonetic spelling is not acceptable, but not every case. End of citation.

But a learner might think so, if he or she encounters such a silly spelling. If you start leaning a language, you maybe don't know if such a word really exists. So your spelling needlessly confuses learners and others, who might believe this word has a special meaning or is a new invention. I don't know about the etymologies of country, maybe someone knows? Phonetic spelling is never acceptable, if there's already another spelling used in the language. If there's a language which never got a written form, you can use phonetic spelling for the words of that language. If this language also has words borrowed form another language, especially English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, which are widely used, and if this loanwords are pronounced similar as in the language respectively, than it maybe would be wise to write them in their original form. But the people should decide!
Bardioc   Tue Sep 13, 2005 10:59 am GMT
'' "Wasser predigen, aber selbst Wein trinken!" ''

''The Japanese language has changed drastically since the end of the second world war. Usage of hiragana became more fonetic, easier for children to learn. As for Kanji(Chinese caracters used in Japanese), caracters of many strokes were simplifyed.''

This comment was not on the usage of hiragana or katakana, but on the usage of kanji. A kanji is a pictogram for some concept. As far as I know, it also contains some information on pronounciation in chinese. And, as far as I've heart, in japanese, there are two kinds of how a kanji can be pronounced. So how do you know about the right pronounciation of a special kanji? A writing system need not being phonetic to serve its purpose, see the hebrew writing system. Maybe a language with a writing system which is not phonetic stays alive much longer than a language with a phonetic writing system.

Why should it be a goal to make everything easier? Why not challanging the children? Life isn't easy, you must start to learn that in school!
Bardioc   Tue Sep 13, 2005 1:33 pm GMT
''The Japanese language has changed drastically since the end of the second world war.''

As the world changed drastically after world war 2, all the major languages of the world ''changed'', I think. But how did they ''change''? And does this changes really force the orthography to be changed?
Bardioc   Tue Sep 13, 2005 3:26 pm GMT
''The elderly continued to write according to their way that they had learned. Of course they could continue.''

The reformers here in germany say so, too! -- Now, please reread my previous posts!

''But now many of us, or almost all, use simplifyed Japanese. It is natural.''

Here's your error. You compare apples with pears. If you as Japanese decide to have a reform, and everything is ok with that, and the japanese people like it, you should not conclude that reforms in general are good for other languages. It's a matter of free will. It's a matter of need etc.

Here in germany, the majority is against the reform. It came into being without the people being asked. It came into being two years before planned, without testing, without giving the scholars the opportunity to say their opinion or to critisize or to make additional proposals!

In general, to simplify on the one hand can cause a complication on the other. (Even told so, German ''Rechtschreibreform isn't a simplification, but a complication: With the new rules, it's much harder to grasp the sense of a sentence.)

When issuing a new orthography, you just add something, you can't get rid of the previous orthography. You can't prohibit the children to read texts written in classical orthography. Such texts are everywhere. And if you forbit it, you start to live in an totalitarian state. So it's not easier for the children. They must learn both forms. They will intermix them, so orthography gets arbitrary, and you get rid of the benefits of a unique orthography.
Bardioc   Tue Sep 13, 2005 3:48 pm GMT
For those who understand german, see here:

http://www.sprachforschung.org/index.php?show=news&id=337#1710
Bardioc   Wed Sep 14, 2005 10:21 am GMT
See here for a different, but somewhat related problem:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1534588,00.html