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Ghoti
- pickdenis 6y agoGhoughphtheightteeau
- _emacsomancer_ 6y agoI use this example in my class.
- dredmorbius 6y agoI say poh-TAH-toe. Let's call the whole thing off.
- asplake 6y agoconsidered harmful
- livealife 6y agoOne of the core problems of English language.
- xenator 6y agoMost interesting problem of English language is that it is not direct. Good example is small talks. In many cultures direct question assume direct answer. If somebody asks you "how are you" you kinda obligated to give response with your real feelings and events happened to you last time. In USA mostly every stranger can start this conversation and expect only unsalted response. This tradition is much deeper than you think. On some lever you will never understand price for thing you buy, or will never get invite to the party or have no chance to get investment to your startup. And these games everywhere in English culture.
- egypturnash 6y agoMay I ask what language you are a native speaker of? I have a couple ideas based on the patterns of your errors but I’m not sure. (My strongest guess is Russian due to your omission of articles.)
- majewsky 6y ago> omission of articles AFAIK this pattern is not limited to native Russians, it's shared by most (all?) Slavic languages.
- jrockway 6y agoI think this depends on the intimacy of the two people having the conversation. "How are you?" does always yield a (grammatically) direct answer: "great!" "good" "fine, thank you!" "ok...", but which of these someone chooses depends on how much time the other person wants to spend talking about it. You are right that it is uncommon to ask "how are you" because the questioner wants a detailed assessment of your mental health. It is just a set greeting. "I greet you!" would work just as well in many cases. Not going into any depth here is a proxy for the relationship not being very deep. When I check out with my groceries, "how are you" is always exchanged. I am sure that neither of us really care about the details, so the details aren't discussed. Similarly, the kind of person that you have this superficial relationship with isn't going to give you a special price, invite you to their party, or invest in your startup. That is a deeper relationship that has to be cultivated somehow. That is not unique to English, that's just how people work. A related issue is how people try to avoid random conversations with strangers. The people you see on the sidewalk walking at a brisk pace, looking at their phone, never making eye contact, wearing noise cancelling headphones are sending a clear message that they do not want to have a random conversation with you.
- fl0wenol 6y agoI don't know if this is unique to English. But I'd say it's culturally acceptable in America, Canada, the UK, etc. to use the passive voice and qualify all statements so that you can mean something entirely different or have a way of weaseling out of any commitments implied by what you say. If you speak in the active voice and use simple, direct statements, people assume that you're in the military, giving orders, or perhaps a charlatan if you're trying to sell something. Like a carnival barker. That has a negative connotation unfortunately.
- matheusmoreira 6y agoIn English school I was taught that when someone asks "How do you do?" the appropriate response is to also ask "How do you do?". Neither speaker gives or expects an answer to the question.
- jdminhbg 6y ago> while ti would only resemble sh when followed by a vowel sound ("mention", "martian", "patient", "spatial"). ti isn't "sh" in "mention," it's "ch," at least in any dialect I'm aware of. Cf. slang for Twitter mentions, "menchies."
- intellirogue 6y agoIn my NZ accent I definitely say "men-shin" not "men-chin", though those two sounds are very close.
- matt-attack 6y agoI’m a native speaker and I frankly don’t know which I use. I could see it going either way.
- saalweachter 6y agoThis is, incidentally, one of the tricky parts of trying to add a phonetic spelling to English. Should the phonetic spelling of "mention" be "menshin" or "menchin"? Should the spelling be the same everywhere, with people pronouncing it the other way having to learn to spell it correctly, or should it be spelled differently depending on the dialect of the speaker?
- jdminhbg 6y agoInteresting. Listening to it in a NZ accent I can hear it.
- anamexis 6y agoAs a Midwestern American speaker, it's in between. Harder than "sh" but softer than "ch".
- smichel17 6y agoEducation
- vikramkr 6y ago
- MichaelMoser123 6y agohttps://www.ghotit.com/ https://www.ghotit.com/ the name of this company relates to this; they sell a spell checker that is specially suited for people with dyslexia.
- LatteLazy 6y agoI'm a native English speaker who is currently learning German. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MAKING YOUR SPELLING Work GERMANY! Sorry about our mess of BS you have to learn to use English.
- wirrbel 6y agoAs a german, what I prefer about english spelling: * You do not capitalize Nouns in your Sentences which is means I don't have to analyse the lexical Structure of a Sentence while writting stuff. Stuff that is hard in English but rarely talked about because of the prominence of the phonetics-vs-traditional spelling: * hyphenation (fairly complex, basically one needs to look it up or rely on tooling in english, rarely taught). * punctuation, especially placement of commas * capitalization in headings (a bit confusing, conflicting recommendations) Oh and as for german there are a lot of strange things buried in what superficially looks like a fairly ok system. * Typically you can infer from the roots of a word whether to spell with `e' or `ä' (i.e. schälen (to peel) is spelled with ä because it stems from Schale [peel]). But for some words that doesn't apply, for example Mehl (flour) is related to `mahlen' (to grind), but not spelled "Mähl". * Auslautverhärtung is not spelled out but implied. I.e. Hund (dog) is kind of pronounced as if it would end with a -t ("Hunt"), whereas "Hunde" (dogs) has a soft d sound. Turkish makes such things explicit (compare `kitap` and `kitabi`). If we went down the turkish route, we could introduce a soft-s and hard-s distinction in the alphabet (maybe z vs s) and get rid of the `ß/ss` mess. * `sch` should be replaced by Ş, w -> v (with existing spellings of v being replaced by f where necessary ("von" -> "fon"), z -> "ts", etc. There is an obscure swiss organisation promoting a spelling reform for German(that differs from my suggestions) https://www.ortografie.ch https://www.ortografie.ch Its focus is a lot on vocal lengths and capitalization. Kind of interesting stuff (that will never make its way into the maintstream).
- soared 6y agoThe nice thing about English if that with punctuation you can make up your own rules - pretty much. I toss in hyphens and stuff all the time... Just match how you talk with how you write, and it reads very naturally.
- 6y ago
- imglorp 6y agoIf this irritates anyone, you might be interested in the work of George Bernard Shaw and Kingsley Read to reform English spelling. They proposed a consistent, phonetic, spelling and writing system called Shavian and published a now-rare book using that system. The second iteration made some slight usability and efficiency improvements and called the new work Quikscript. Of course, in an alternate universe, this superior writing system was adopted along with the full SI unit system. https://omniglot.com/writing/shavian.htm https://omniglot.com/writing/shavian.htm https://shavian.weebly.com/uploads/1/0/2/1/10212142/30817_orig.jpg https://shavian.weebly.com/uploads/1/0/2/1/10212142/30817_or... https://www.quikscript.net/ https://www.quikscript.net/
- dylan604 6y ago>Of course, in an alternate universe, this superior writing system was adopted along with the full SI unit system. in that same universe do we eliminate 2^N in favor of 10^N?
- koolba 6y agoNo I think we’d just be born with four fingers on each hand.
- jacobolus 6y agoDoublings are much more intuitive than powers of 10. If most logarithms were taken base 2 it would make a big improvement in their comprehensibility to laypeople. For closest link to western music, use binary logarithms represented using duodecimals. It makes a very nice simple system for approximate arithmetic, since 1 digit after the duodecimal point is enough to represent 3 and 5 reasonably closely. (The same two approximations that make our music sound harmonic also make approximate arithmetic easy and convenient). Of course, that would work even better if we switched to using base twelve for general arithmetic and metrology, overall a big improvement over the often inconvenient decimal system.
- aidos 6y agoNice! Fascinating how many letters you need to represent all the vowels.
- imedadel 6y agoConcerning the spelling reform, is there any language that recently underwent a successful spelling reform? And by recent, I mean in the last 10 years. The thing is that with the widespread usage of the internet it seems harder to successfully reform the orthography of a language. Every language is, nowadays, in one way or another decentralized and uncontrolled by language authorities.
- littlecranky67 6y agoNot 10 years, but yeah, German was completely reformed some 24 years ago. It is still pretty major as several countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland and others with german-speaking minorities) had to coordinate and consent. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_orthography_reform_of_1996 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_orthography_reform_of_1... I as a child started learning the old orthography in school, was taught the "new" one later on and had to use it and even the "new new" one (there was basically a version 2.1 minor update). To this day I am confused about how to correctly spell and write words, and I always end up mixing old/new orthography. The fact that almost all major newspapers refuse to fully adhere to the new orthography and use custom deviations every here and there does not exactly help. Lessons learned: It is a mess, don't do it.
- ajmurmann 6y agoI was in school during this time as well and before the reform had an entire grade point deducted from most exams because of my bad spelling. The new spelling immediately made sense to me and the issue went away. So much less learning of exceptions that made only historical sense. But then I'm also the kind of person who thinks we should embrace the positivist calendar and agree on a single language.
- majewsky 6y ago> even the "new new" one (there was basically a version 2.1 minor update) As far as I remember, the update to the update was only about allowing some old forms as valid alternates. Which I like very much. I'm mostly on board with the new style (partly based on upbringing, partly because it makes much more sense), but you'll never see me write "Portmonee".
- every 6y ago"Homophones, Weakly"[0] enjoys a place in my RSS feed. And I have a supposedly complete version of the referenced poem, "The Chaos"[1]... [0] http://homophonesweakly.blogspot.com/ http://homophonesweakly.blogspot.com/ [1] https://every.sdf.org/various/longish/thechaos.txt https://every.sdf.org/various/longish/thechaos.txt
- teddyh 6y ago> a supposedly complete version of the referenced poem, "The Chaos" Wikisource has the complete version as originally published in 1920: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Chaos https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Chaos
- html5web 6y agoYou username is a hack, wow!
- adventured 6y agoI'm surprised it was available as recently as 2019.
- every 6y agoSeemingly one of the lesser considered adjectives. I have used it in a number of places with no rejections, so far. It was originally the name of a nethack character that attempted to ascend "every" role. And failed, of course...
- already 6y agoRegistered as already
- every 6y agoAh, an adverb...
- _emacsomancer_ 6y agoGiven the variation amongst different varieties of English, a phonetically-based reform would be tricky. E.g., should we spell 'car' as 'kar' or 'kaa'? (It's also worth mentioning that English spelling is position-dependent: there aren't any real words where 'gh' at the beginning is pronounced as 'f'.)
- skrause 6y ago> Given the variation amongst different varieties of English, a phonetically-based reform would be tricky. Spanish has managed to do that. It has as much variety in its dialects as English (e.g. some dialects have very different "c" and "s" sounds or "b" and "v" sounds while others don't), yet all in all the orthography is quite regular and phonetic.
- _emacsomancer_ 6y agoThat's regular but not phonetic. (I'm not fully convinced that Spanish has quite as much variation as English, but I'll admit I'm not expert on Spanish.) But what do you do when certain segments are not just pronounced differently, but completely absent in some varieties? (E.g. my example about /kɑ:/ vs /kɑ:r/)
- thenewwazoo 6y agoApropos not much, I’m a native English speaker who is learning Spanish quite intensively, and I can say without a doubt that there is more variation across Spanish dialects than English. Different regions have hugely different lexicons, with many many different words for the same things. Just try to predict the word for “green pea” based on region! Learning Spanish is like learning 15 languages at once. It’s hilarious fun but specialization becomes a concern very very early.
- _emacsomancer_ 6y agoI wasn't talking about lexical variation though. (I also wonder how much experience you have with the wide range of English varieties: there's quite a bit of lexical variation.) Lexical variation is pretty irrelevant for spelling changes.
- anonu 6y agoGhoti, sure... But the whole world still wants to learn English. Most people are not deterred by the messed up spelling and other irregularities. Also, English like any language is a living and breathing thing. New words come in, new spellings, etc... Reform would cause even more confusion than benefits
- aledalgrande 6y agoAnd natives still laugh when I pronounce a word wrong between the million others I say
- anderspitman 6y agoDo you feel like they're laughing in mockery to make you feel bad, or just because it sounds funny and they actually want to laugh with you and not just at you? I was in Sweden for the first time last year. Besides learning the proper pronunciation of my given name ("Ahndairsh" with a slightly hard "sh"), at one point I noticed the words "Hej hej" written on a bunch of things. I asked them what "hedge hedge" means, and they had a good laugh teasing me about it (it's pronounced "hey hey", and seems to mean about the same thing as the English). I laughed with them and it was actually a bonding experience with my new friends.
- aledalgrande 6y agoIt doesn't really matter why, as you always feel you are the "different" one, especially in professional environments.
- maest 6y agoThere's a small category of words, at least in British English, that act as a fairly effective shibboleth when it comes to identify non-native speakers. Usually names for places, but not only: Glouchester, Worcester, Worcestershire, leftenant etc
- pge 6y agoLots of place names in US that reveal not just non-native speakers but also native speakers that aren’t locals. Some that come to mind: Worcester, MA; Wilkes-Barre, PA; Versailles, KY; New Berlin, PA; and many others.
- egypturnash 6y agoHow you pronounce “New Orleans” can show not only whether or not you are a local, but which part of town you are from, and how old you are. I can think of at least four or five ways.
- html5web 6y agohttp://ghoti.xyz http://ghoti.xyz redirects to the Wikipedia article.
- html5web 6y agoAs a polyglot and linguist, I have analyzed the spelling as follows: Gh - Arabic hard G, O - Persian Ou, Ti - Russian Tee.
- barely 6y agoThis is amazingly sad thing about the English language.
- dakiol 6y agoAs a non-English speaker, I find the English spoken by non-native speakers far easier to understand and deal with than the English spoken by Americans/British. I work with Germans, Italians, Spaniards, French, Dutch and I understand them 99% of the time. We use "normal" words (we are not fancy regarding vocabulary) and pronounce them in a non-native way (the way all Europeans that speak English understand)... But the moment our British colleagues join the conversation, then our understanding decreases to around 70%: either because of the usage of "fancy" words or because of pronunciation. Besides, since we all make the same mistakes when speaking English, we understand each other without asking "sorry, what do you mean?"
- derefr 6y ago> Besides, since we all make the same mistakes when speaking English, we understand each other without asking "sorry, what do you mean?" That’s likely because the languages you speak all share recent ancestry (if they’re not all Romance languages, they’re at least all descended from Proto-Indo-European.) Meanwhile, I’ve seen e.g. Mexican and Chinese ESL speakers have very bad mutual intelligibility, because they make very different mistakes.
- mchaver 6y ago> Meanwhile, I’ve seen e.g. Mexican and Chinese ESL speakers have very bad mutual intelligibility, because they make very different mistakes. That's true. Assume a monolingual learner. You can predict the kinds of mistakes they will make based on their native language (phonetical, phonological, semantic, etc.). As a person learns more languages, they will likely get better at decoding these things. Particularly cultural based assumptions used in languages.
- mixmastamyk 6y agoFunny story, had this happen to me in a hostel in Germany. I had to “translate“ from English with a heavy Italian accent to/from English with a heavy Vietnamese accent between roommates. Basically I just repeated what each said into my California English accent with a few touch ups. Everyone finally understood. :D
- wcameronmiller 6y agoI'm glad the Wikipedia article included the link to this page (http://zompist.com/spell.html http://zompist.com/spell.html) that give a good breakdown of the actual general rules of English spelling - granted there's almost 60 of them.
- toddsiegel 6y agoIn teaching my young son to read I have become starkly aware at just how inconsistent English is. I never consciously realized how many ways there are to pronounce "ough". And not a single one makes sense. That said, I am amazed at how quickly he's figuring it all out.
- cortesoft 6y agoYeah, my four year old daughter is super into learning what words start with right now... I always feel so bad when I have to tell her she is wrong because of the weirdness of English.
- LaLaLand122 6y agoNeither my wife or me are native, our child started school last year. When we were introduced to the concept of "Tricky words" our reaction was: sorry, do you mean every single word?
- selimthegrim 6y agoI thought this was about Eastern and Western Bengali at first.
- Orochikaku 6y agoIn what way, I'm interested since I'm a Bengali speaker
- selimthegrim 6y agoGhoti/Bangal?
- glandium 6y agoRelatedly, this video is hilarious: What If English Were Phonetically Consistent? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8zWWp0akUU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8zWWp0akUU
- myth2018 6y agoThat is one of the reasons why I think Esperanto has too much more to offer to the World as an international language than English. I'm not an activist. Besides, I enjoy so many features of English. But the resources one must invest to learn it as a second language make it unreachable to a huge amount of people around the globe, providing breeding ground to the formation of "linguistic elites" and deepening social and economic inequalities. Having contact with poor people in my country and others and being a non-native speaker myself make me very aware of that.
- crispyporkbites 6y agoForget Esperanto, give Toki Pona a look
- balladeer 6y agoAre we there yet https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/?
- godelski 6y agoThis reminds me of a stack exchange puzzle that uses this same pattern. [0] While this isn't the "correct" answer I think everyone agrees that it is the "best" answer (or at least the funniest). As a language lover, this is just a beautiful and hilarious. [0] https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/a/32280/22182 https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/a/32280/22182
- janpen 6y agoConlang critic's take https://youtu.be/TEsqY4MH40s https://youtu.be/TEsqY4MH40s
- tryauuum 6y agoI think this example is far-fetched and, due to being so far-fetched, is useless. I mean there are no actual english words where "gh" at the beginning of a word would be pronounced as "f", right? And "gh" at the end of a word hints heavily that you should pronounce it as "f", there are no irregularities here.
- anamexis 6y agoOff the top of my head, "nigh" is a counterexample.
- tryauuum 6y agoYes, you are right. I should have said «..."ough" at the end of a word hints heavily ...» I am kind of pissed off how article attacks english language. Of course if you interpreter a letter without a context you will have silly results!
- agar 6y agoAs I'm sure many will jump in to say, "ough" is an unfortunate example. "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
- tryauuum 6y agohn proves again that I don't know english
- balladeer 6y agoImho I don't see it as attacking the English language, but rather an irregularity in it.
- tom_ 6y agoRiiiiight, so obviously you personally have no problems with the spelling rules of English (which do, in general, exist, contrary to popular belief). But, we need to ask ourselves: if it is at all conceivable that "ghoti" could be sounded out as "fish", just what the fuck is going on here? Sure, you don't have a problem dealing with this nonsense - I don't have one neither! But I struggle to believe that you've failed to notice that a lot of people do. Who is this system here to serve? Could it not be improved?
- black6 6y agoDearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it's written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind. Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation's OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhymes with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie. Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. Pronunciation -- think of Psyche! Is a paling stout and spikey? Won't it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It's a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough? Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
- spoiler 6y agoThere was also a meme going around that one can spell "potato" like "Ghoughphtheightteeau" with the following explanation: - gh for P as in "hiccough" - ough for O as in "dough" - phth for T as in "phthisis" - eigh for A as in "neighbour" - tte for T as in "gazette" - eau for O as in "plateau" edit: formatting
- jesseb 6y ago> hiccough I've never seen this word before! I've always seen it spelled "hiccup". Is it used in a particular region or do I just live under a rock?
- fermienrico 6y agoNationalism is rampant and leaking through in this thread. “English” sucks, replace with ______ native tongue is better. Someone posted a thread about cost of their neighborhood road renovation project and immediately an Australian tells the thread that America feels like a third world country from a sample size of exactly 1. I am not even American. Everyone is getting tribal. Humanity is splitting apart with infighting even on a highly intellectual community as HN. Folks, please try to be civil and self-introspective, especially if something you say perhaps is hypocritical or fuels your own nationalistic pscyche. Seek truth - the language nature understands, not our evolutionary tribalism and cultures.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- balladeer 6y agoI am yet to finish through the thread (I may not) but whatever I've seen are all comments on unintuitive and phonetically absurd spellings of many words in English language.
- 082349872349872 6y agoNothing wrong with tribalism as long as we're all seeking to understand people from other tribes instead of imposing our own tribe's[1] ways upon them[2]. A little less "melting pot" and a little more "salad"[3] might go a long way towards whirled peas. [1] and even that "own tribe" has a fractal nature. Scratch a dialect and one finds a collection of idiolects. [2] my understanding of swiss german dialect history is that there used to be pressure to educate the lower and middle classes to speak "standard" german, as the upper classes did. Developments in the 1930s put an end to that, so now not only do we encourage Romansh https://rm.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pagina_principala https://rm.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pagina_principala (Mussolini had claimed they were just peasants who couldn't speak italian correctly) but one can tell where politicians and captains of industry grew up by how they speak. Differences are celebrated, not merely tolerated, or worse, steamrollered away. https://als.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Houptsyte https://als.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Houptsyte gives the flavour of the dialects, but a more academic reference is required for all the isoglosses. (the variety of isoglosses also means that for informal use, SMS, internet, etc. orthography is a matter of regional taste) [3] in which the constituents retain their identity but taste much better because they're all mixed together. cultures are a fourier transform of humanity?
- flobosg 6y agoHou tu pranownse Inglish: http://www.zompist.com/spell.html http://www.zompist.com/spell.html EDIT: Just realized that the link is already mentioned elsewhere.
- livealife 6y agoThis is because in English it's not always that you speak what you write. Pronunciation is different for the same letter in different cases. In some languages (mainly Indian) like Hindi, we speak what we write and we write what we speak i.e. Our letters have a definite and unique sounds.
- magnio 6y agoThat property is called phonemic orthography, and some examples include Finnish, Turkish and Esperanto.
- AmIDev 6y agoWhile this is true, the pronunciations are not consistent across languages that use Devanagari script. ज्ञ is pronounced like "gy" in Hindi, but "ny" in Marathi. ज is pronounced like "jy"(with the य sound) in Hindi-ish languages, but without य in Marathi. Some sounds are completely missing/unused is some languages, like ळ and ण. So non-native speakers with another Devanagari language as mothertongue still get pronunciations wrong.
- gholap 6y agoAlso, even within Marathi, at least for the letters ज and च, how you pronounce them depends on the word. You have to know the correct pronunciation beforehand, as it can't really be guessed from the word. जेजुरी is my favourite example. चिंच is a close second :)
- livealife 6y agoMore of such intriguing facts can be found in the book by Martin Jurafsky, Computational linguistics.
- zzo38computer 6y agoIt is correct the English spelling is really messy. Maybe, it is because they use Latin alphabets; Latin alphabets are good for writing in Latin (and, I suppose, Romantic languages), but for English perhaps isn't as good; but, it is what we have now, so it is what we are going to do. Germanic (futhorc) alphabets might be better way for writing English, maybe.
- timonoko 6y agoIn Lapland you can often see Germans and Finns use particularly "phonetic" English. The writing system is similar, so it is easier to pronounce words as they are written, instead of trying some fancy Hollywood way. This might be the future of spoken English as most other languages have same wholesome writing system, and thus there are no ambiguities.
- timonoko 6y ago"Jäniskoski Bridge" comes to mind. There are no perceived differences between "b" and "p", or "g" and "k". And the "ʒ"-sound is not possible for most humans. So the correct pronounciation in year 2235 will be "prid-key".
- Kim_Bruning 6y agoOnce upon a time, I figured out the reason why 'gh' is so inconsistent. It used to be its own sound, but that sound has vanished from the English language. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gh_(digraph)#English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gh_(digraph)#English 'ti' pronounced as 'sh' is only in french loan words afaict. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin-script_digraphs#T https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin-script_digraphs#... I don't yet know how the 'o' in woman becomes an 'i'. When I do, I'll have finally cracked the whole of ghoti.
- theandrewbailey 6y agoI'm not an expert, but I suspect that it has something to do with wifmann, Old English for woman. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wifmann https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wifmann