Does English need a spelling reform?
ca, kivuye
Ubutumwa 60
ururimi: English
Miland (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Rusama 2008 19:45:23
Mind you, we could go for the more moderate measures of the (simplified) spelling society instead. Has anyone had a good look at their website (www.spellingsociety.org)and formed any opinions yet?
awake (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Rusama 2008 20:31:12
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The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five year phase-in plan that would be known as "Euro-English".
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"s in the language is disgraseful, and they should go away.
By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru! And zen world!
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old joke, couldn't resist
Betka (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 22 Rusama 2008 20:34:31
mnlg (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 22 Rusama 2008 21:17:05
Betka:Another thing to consider is that those, who have already learned English spelling might be rather upset if there's a reform and suddenly, all their effort and hard work will be wasted! Consistency has its advantages.Leaving the main topic aside for a second, and as a reply to your conclusion, I do not agree; keeping consistent to the old rule when it can be improved is, most of the times, inefficient at best. As a counter-argument, I'm sure that the advent of electricity pushed the oil lamp industry out of business and I can imagine that there are those who lost their investments and efforts in the process, but I think that the advantages are quite evident.
I doubt a reform will ever take place as long as English retains its current status. This doesn't mean that it wouldn't profit from it, even though the adjustment period would be the hardest, as it always happens.
briezee (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 23 Rusama 2008 22:35:53
Betka:Another thing to consider is that those, who have already learned English spelling might be rather upset if there's a reform and suddenly, all their effort and hard work will be wasted! Consistency has its advantages.I actually like how English is spelled - but I'm also very good at spelling. However, I could see the arguments for a spelling reform. The logistics of rolling out a reform would be difficult for me to figure out. How do those not in school learn all the new spelling rules? I don't have kids in school to bring the new rules home to me...
EL_NEBULOSO (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 24 Rusama 2008 14:44:09
if a spelling reform in English would be done the same way like the reform of German spelling in the German speaking countries several years ago, then such a reform would better be omitted.
In the German reform, they went about half way in most issues, so there were a lot of changes, but still there is no real consistency (like we have in Esperanto).
If a complete and clear reform is performed, then it might be a goog idea, although a time of transition might be difficult.
Gerald
Trilernisto (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 31 Rusama 2008 01:09:06
The one problem with reforming English spelling is the fact that English has about 40 sounds and a current alphabet of 26 letters. Adding letters would confuse a lot of people (I've seen it firsthand) but digraphs and trigraphs are even worse (hothouse: [hɔthɑʊs] or [hɔθɑʊs]?) I use the Shavian and Quickscript alphabets so am pretty convinced that a new alphabet has a lot of advantages.
Miland (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 31 Rusama 2008 11:29:09
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that 'mid-Atlantic', something like the broadcaster Alastair Cooke, or the actors John Houseman or Norman Lloyd, were chosen as a standard that would appeal to as many English-speakers as possible. Not only current texts but technical material and the classics of English literature would have to be transformed in this way.
In practice this would be so expensive and difficult that it would need governments to have a chance of success. One way of persuading them might be successful attempts on a small scale by communities of enthusiasts.
The history of auxiliary languages might provide important lessons and ideas for such communities, because the various attempts to deal with this problem, ranging from limited spelling reforms to the invention of an expanded alphabet, provides a parallel to the problem of the creation of an artificial language, on a small scale. It will be interesting to see which attempts (if any) succeed and why.
Pino (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 31 Rusama 2008 19:42:37
French has complicated spelling and is not phonetic ... counter-arguments were very much the same, that French pronunciation is different around the world, and that written French provides the link between the different places that speak French.In the thread ortografio the arguments are not exactly the same. The purpose of the French reform was not to write phonetically but only to correct some blatant inconsistencies.
The purpose of even a wholesale spelling reform would have to be more modest than the creation of an international languageIf a natural language is not phonetic, it is not necessarily bad. If Esperanto is phonetic, it is good.
if a spelling reform in English would be done the same way like the reform of German spelling in the German speaking countries several years ago, then such a reform would better be omitted.For a foreigner the German reform sounded intersting. It simplified some pronounciation points.
mnlg (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 11 Ruheshi 2008 16:39:53
The disconnection process that you describe is already underway, and it has been for a long time; and, ironically, it is (primarily, IMHO) caused by the lack of a pronunciation norm, which is also one of the causes for the current status, which is motivating those who suggest a spelling reform. It could be argued, that if this loss of information has to happen anyway, it would be best to engineer it so as to cause, at least, one positive consequence, that is the aforementioned consistency.
All that remains is to teach that every word ending with the brand new phonetic suffix -shən comes originally from Latin and has suffered the tremendous mangling of English pronunciation through the history of the language
As I said, I'm quite doubtful it would ever happen, but in the end I am still convinced that it would improve the situation. Just my opinion.