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from my perspective given my English background, I like English spelling. Sensibility says I should just give it all up and adhere to the dominant language form

from my perspective given my English background, I like English spelling. Sensibility says I should just give it all up and adhere to the dominant language form (en-US) for the sake of clarity.... and yet.... I shall not. > We tend to forget that the main purpose of a language is communication But also one might consider, or seek the word, that certain way of spitting, tells some peeps we fam. Language isn't just about communicating meaning but also cultural content, identity and social markers. This is part of what drives its frequent development and also part of why some people want to preserve their way of speaking even if its merely a creole or a "dying" language.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
Yeah but this stuff get pushed as a higher priority over communication, that's my problem with every argument about "preserving culture". If everybody in Italy understands "computer", calling it "calcolatore" is outright against communication (that word in italian is closer to "device to do math operations", which is technically correct, but not what people imagine)
- ithkuil 4y ago
  Ironically that's exactly what "computer" means. The root "comput-" comes from latin "computo" while "calcolatore" comes from the latin "calculo" which is a rough latin synonym of "computo". The form "comput-" transformed in Italian into "cont-" like in "conto" (English count), "contante" (cash) etc. So perhaps "contatore" (counter) instead of "computer" would make more etymological sense.
  - fathyb 4y ago
    We had this debate in France in 1955. We use the word "ordinateur" for "computer", which comes from the latin "ordinator" which means something that order things, it shares the same root as the word "order". It was picked over the word "calculateur" which is the French equivalent of "calculatore" after IBM France shared a letter wondering if "calculateur" was too restrictive and didn't properly express the machine capabilities. To which Jacques Perret answered "why not ordinateur?" https://journals.openedition.org/bibnum/534 https://journals.openedition.org/bibnum/534
    - Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
      It's kinda funny picturing either of those words as we play Dark Souls (videogame) on these devices. Yes of course that's "all math", still!
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
    I'm well aware and I find it somewhat amusing. The problem is the interpretation people give to the word. If I say computer, people think of something with keyboard + mouse and a screen, or maybe a laptop (funny enough, they will not think of their phone). If I say "calcolatore", we envision one of those devices to do math operations, used in school (are those still a thing?)
    - kome 4y ago
      that's a calcolatrice, calcolatore is a computer :)
      - Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
        I'm aware, but still in the small circle of people I asked to, they all envisioned that over a computer, lol
  - mnw21cam 4y ago
    Only a short time ago, the word "computer" meant a person (who calculates things as a job).
  - sharikous 4y ago
    I am always amused by those kinds of etymologies where a word "gets back" to the language it came from or its more direct heir (Italian for Latin) after living in a different language. In Hebrew we have "tachless" that comes from yiddish "tachless", that comes from Hebrew "tachlit" but now tachless and tachlit have different meanings and different grammar roles
  - acadapter 4y ago
    This was done in Slovenia (računalnik)
stevekemp 4y ago
> I like English spelling. I grew up in the UK and prefer British-English to American-English, both in terms of spelling and pronunciation. That said English has terrible spelling compared to other languages, it's impossible to know how to pronounce a word just looking at the spelling. I don't need to give examples, as it is well-known already. I benefit from the fact that many people I've met around the world speak English, but it's almost unfortunate that one of the harder/more inconsistent languages "won".
- nl 4y ago
  If you are interested, there's a good reason why English spelling is so weird. The pronunciation of vowels shifted between 1400-1700 and depending on when a specific word's spelling was "standardised" decides which version of the pronunciation was used. If it's the old vowel pronunciation the spelling will make no sense, whereas the new vowel are mostly ok. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift is pretty good, and include sound files of the old vs new pronunciations.
  - TRiG_Ireland 4y ago
    And the great vowel shift happened very shortly after the introduction of the printing press to Britain and the standardisation of English spelling.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > I benefit from the fact that many people I've met around the world speak English, but it's almost unfortunate that one of the harder/more inconsistent languages "won". English is not one of the harder or more inconsistent languages in the world. It's one of the simpler and more consistent ones. This is a general pattern with languages that go through a phase where they are learned by large numbers of adults.
  - stevekemp 4y ago
    English is very inconsistent, not that this necessarily makes it harder of course, compared to languages such as Finnish which has very regular grammar and no ambiguity with pronounciation. ("I could have read the red book, because I like to read." is just one example of inconsistent pronounciation. Spelling is non-obvious to people learning the language, again as a result of unusual and inconsistent pronounciation.)

Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago

Yeah but this stuff get pushed as a higher priority over communication, that's my problem with every argument about "preserving culture". If everybody in Italy understands "computer", calling it "calcolatore" is outright against communication (that word in italian is closer to "device to do math operations", which is technically correct, but not what people imagine)

ithkuil 4y ago
Ironically that's exactly what "computer" means. The root "comput-" comes from latin "computo" while "calcolatore" comes from the latin "calculo" which is a rough latin synonym of "computo". The form "comput-" transformed in Italian into "cont-" like in "conto" (English count), "contante" (cash) etc. So perhaps "contatore" (counter) instead of "computer" would make more etymological sense.
- fathyb 4y ago
  We had this debate in France in 1955. We use the word "ordinateur" for "computer", which comes from the latin "ordinator" which means something that order things, it shares the same root as the word "order". It was picked over the word "calculateur" which is the French equivalent of "calculatore" after IBM France shared a letter wondering if "calculateur" was too restrictive and didn't properly express the machine capabilities. To which Jacques Perret answered "why not ordinateur?" https://journals.openedition.org/bibnum/534 https://journals.openedition.org/bibnum/534
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
    It's kinda funny picturing either of those words as we play Dark Souls (videogame) on these devices. Yes of course that's "all math", still!
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
  I'm well aware and I find it somewhat amusing. The problem is the interpretation people give to the word. If I say computer, people think of something with keyboard + mouse and a screen, or maybe a laptop (funny enough, they will not think of their phone). If I say "calcolatore", we envision one of those devices to do math operations, used in school (are those still a thing?)
  - kome 4y ago
    that's a calcolatrice, calcolatore is a computer :)
    - Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
      I'm aware, but still in the small circle of people I asked to, they all envisioned that over a computer, lol
- mnw21cam 4y ago
  Only a short time ago, the word "computer" meant a person (who calculates things as a job).
- sharikous 4y ago
  I am always amused by those kinds of etymologies where a word "gets back" to the language it came from or its more direct heir (Italian for Latin) after living in a different language. In Hebrew we have "tachless" that comes from yiddish "tachless", that comes from Hebrew "tachlit" but now tachless and tachlit have different meanings and different grammar roles
- acadapter 4y ago
  This was done in Slovenia (računalnik)

stevekemp 4y ago

> I like English spelling. I grew up in the UK and prefer British-English to American-English, both in terms of spelling and pronunciation. That said English has terrible spelling compared to other languages, it's impossible to know how to pronounce a word just looking at the spelling. I don't need to give examples, as it is well-known already. I benefit from the fact that many people I've met around the world speak English, but it's almost unfortunate that one of the harder/more inconsistent languages "won".

nl 4y ago
If you are interested, there's a good reason why English spelling is so weird. The pronunciation of vowels shifted between 1400-1700 and depending on when a specific word's spelling was "standardised" decides which version of the pronunciation was used. If it's the old vowel pronunciation the spelling will make no sense, whereas the new vowel are mostly ok. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift is pretty good, and include sound files of the old vs new pronunciations.
- TRiG_Ireland 4y ago
  And the great vowel shift happened very shortly after the introduction of the printing press to Britain and the standardisation of English spelling.
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> I benefit from the fact that many people I've met around the world speak English, but it's almost unfortunate that one of the harder/more inconsistent languages "won". English is not one of the harder or more inconsistent languages in the world. It's one of the simpler and more consistent ones. This is a general pattern with languages that go through a phase where they are learned by large numbers of adults.
- stevekemp 4y ago
  English is very inconsistent, not that this necessarily makes it harder of course, compared to languages such as Finnish which has very regular grammar and no ambiguity with pronounciation. ("I could have read the red book, because I like to read." is just one example of inconsistent pronounciation. Spelling is non-obvious to people learning the language, again as a result of unusual and inconsistent pronounciation.)