4 ms·

The flaw in your argument is the implied presumption that Latin preserve all information for languages that have always used the Latin alphabet. For some langu

The flaw in your argument is the implied presumption that Latin preserve all information for languages that have always used the Latin alphabet. For some language it is closer to truth, like Spanish and German, which mostly are pronounced like they are written English and French, identical spelling represent varying sounds. English example: lose, rose, tone,... all different "o" sounds, yet they all use the same written "o". The point about Cyrillic having more letters is also misguided: you can make sounds with letter combinations. French has dozens and dozens of letter combos for various sounds, let just list a small subset: au, eau, eu, ou, ui, oi, euil, ouil, un, an, in, en, oui, ui, sh, ch, cl, cr, tr, ....

wizofaus 4y ago
I'm curious, I use the same "o" sound for "rose" and "tone", do many native English speakers not? But "not" has a different o sound. As does "ton" and "curious" and "book" (I'm not sure if there are any words that represent the "book" vowel with just a single "o" - though sometimes it's "ou"). Either way, any alphabet change that leads to less correspondence between written and spoken language doesn't seem like a desirable thing...
- torstenvl 4y ago
  The vast, vast majority of English speakers will nasalize the o in tone, and the vast, vast majority of even the small fraction who don't will still pronounce the o farther back than they would for rose. Try this. Pinch your nose closed with your thumb and forefinger. Say "tone" but stop before you articulate the n. Now do the same with "rose," stopping before you articulate the s. I'm betting you felt a lot more vibration in your nose on the first one. There might be a small number of heavy-NCVS speakers for whom there is truly no difference. David Boreanaz, perhaps. Bobby Generic's mom, likely.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    Can't say I detect a difference. Might be an Aus-E thing: https://youglish.com/pronounce/rose/english/aus https://youglish.com/pronounce/rose/english/aus https://youglish.com/pronounce/tone/english/aus https://youglish.com/pronounce/tone/english/aus But I would have thought I use -əʊ- for both, which is what's shown as the Br-E pronunciation for both words on that site.
    - torstenvl 4y ago
      That's what's shown for the phonetics, yes, but we aren't talking about phonemes, we're talking about phonological effects, specifically the anticipatory assimilation of [n] into the preceding vowel. (Note: One wonderfully weird thing about English is that different types of phonological assimilation happen in different directions, e.g., voice assimilation happens the other way, so "fads" is pronounced as if it had a "z" at the end and "putz" is pronounced as if it had an "s" at the end, i.e., "fadz"/"puts" rather than "fats"/"pudz")
forgotmypw17 4y ago
>The point about Cyrillic having more letters is also misguided: you can make sounds with letter combinations. French has dozens and dozens of letter combos for various sounds, let just list a small subset: au, eau, eu, ou, ui, oi, euil, ouil, un, an, in, en, oui, ui, sh, ch, cl, cr, tr, .... Could you please explain how you would represent these different sound and letter combinations in Latin script in a way that would make it obvious how to pronounce them correctly: ща(вель), ша(тун), сча(стье); че(й), чё(рный), чье(-то); This is just two random, very limited examples off the top of my head, not even the tip of the iceberg, but the point of the tip. By the way, Russian also has many regional dialects and accents.
- Gravityloss 4y ago
  Finnish has good correspondence between written and spoken form. This is achieved with extra letters compared to latin and not using some letters. German already had the extras: Ö and Ä. C and Q are not used, instead it's basically always K. There are no spelling bees in Finland. Everything that is said can only be spelled in one way. Everything that is written can only be spoken one way. Estonian has Ō in addition because they really have one more wovel. A latinized Russian should have a different character for each s-like character like it's now in cyrillic. Also, everybody should look at English and French spelling as something definitely NOT to do. Spanish is also good but they are actually close to latin so it's no surprise the latin alphabet also works. German is not so great as the match between spoken and written is quite loose. Both wovels and consonants change with context.

wizofaus 4y ago

I'm curious, I use the same "o" sound for "rose" and "tone", do many native English speakers not? But "not" has a different o sound. As does "ton" and "curious" and "book" (I'm not sure if there are any words that represent the "book" vowel with just a single "o" - though sometimes it's "ou"). Either way, any alphabet change that leads to less correspondence between written and spoken language doesn't seem like a desirable thing...

torstenvl 4y ago
The vast, vast majority of English speakers will nasalize the o in tone, and the vast, vast majority of even the small fraction who don't will still pronounce the o farther back than they would for rose. Try this. Pinch your nose closed with your thumb and forefinger. Say "tone" but stop before you articulate the n. Now do the same with "rose," stopping before you articulate the s. I'm betting you felt a lot more vibration in your nose on the first one. There might be a small number of heavy-NCVS speakers for whom there is truly no difference. David Boreanaz, perhaps. Bobby Generic's mom, likely.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  Can't say I detect a difference. Might be an Aus-E thing: https://youglish.com/pronounce/rose/english/aus https://youglish.com/pronounce/rose/english/aus https://youglish.com/pronounce/tone/english/aus https://youglish.com/pronounce/tone/english/aus But I would have thought I use -əʊ- for both, which is what's shown as the Br-E pronunciation for both words on that site.
  - torstenvl 4y ago
    That's what's shown for the phonetics, yes, but we aren't talking about phonemes, we're talking about phonological effects, specifically the anticipatory assimilation of [n] into the preceding vowel. (Note: One wonderfully weird thing about English is that different types of phonological assimilation happen in different directions, e.g., voice assimilation happens the other way, so "fads" is pronounced as if it had a "z" at the end and "putz" is pronounced as if it had an "s" at the end, i.e., "fadz"/"puts" rather than "fats"/"pudz")

forgotmypw17 4y ago

>The point about Cyrillic having more letters is also misguided: you can make sounds with letter combinations. French has dozens and dozens of letter combos for various sounds, let just list a small subset: au, eau, eu, ou, ui, oi, euil, ouil, un, an, in, en, oui, ui, sh, ch, cl, cr, tr, .... Could you please explain how you would represent these different sound and letter combinations in Latin script in a way that would make it obvious how to pronounce them correctly: ща(вель), ша(тун), сча(стье); че(й), чё(рный), чье(-то); This is just two random, very limited examples off the top of my head, not even the tip of the iceberg, but the point of the tip. By the way, Russian also has many regional dialects and accents.

Gravityloss 4y ago
Finnish has good correspondence between written and spoken form. This is achieved with extra letters compared to latin and not using some letters. German already had the extras: Ö and Ä. C and Q are not used, instead it's basically always K. There are no spelling bees in Finland. Everything that is said can only be spelled in one way. Everything that is written can only be spoken one way. Estonian has Ō in addition because they really have one more wovel. A latinized Russian should have a different character for each s-like character like it's now in cyrillic. Also, everybody should look at English and French spelling as something definitely NOT to do. Spanish is also good but they are actually close to latin so it's no surprise the latin alphabet also works. German is not so great as the match between spoken and written is quite loose. Both wovels and consonants change with context.