49 ms·

The fact that it uses Latin letters doesn't make it phonetic if the same letter consistently resolves to different phonemes or lack thereof, depending on its co

The fact that it uses Latin letters doesn't make it phonetic if the same letter consistently resolves to different phonemes or lack thereof, depending on its context.

mlyle 4y ago
You may argue it's not a very good phonetic script, with all of the special cases present... But letters mostly represent sounds, unlike written languages where characters represent concepts. A computer program written with knowledge of a few dozen of the common special cases would pronounce >90% of English words correctly and be close on most of the rest, "cupboard" notwithstanding. Indeed, look at how well 80's-era speech to text did with this exact approach.
nkrisc 4y ago
It's phonetic because the graphemes (whatever they look like) represent phonemes. If English doesn't use a phonetic writing system, then what kind does it use? Ideographic? Syllabic?
- oxfordmale 4y ago
  English is an alphabetic language not a phonetic one. In a phonetic language, you can pronounce a word just based on its written representation. Just compare current and paste tense of read. It is spelled the same but pronounced differently. You can argue it is an phonetically inconsistent language. However, you will find most of inconsistencies occur in the most frequently used words, making it hard for a beginner.
  - taeric 4y ago
    You are not wrong in idea, but you are wrong in specifics. Does English use a 1:1 phonetic language? No. Of course not. Just like most "functional programming" languages have a lot of differences between them. The colloquial use of the term is not nearly as precise as many think it is. Even looking up the definition of "alphabetic" shows that that is often for phonetic languages. :D
  - nkrisc 4y ago
    It uses a phonetic script. The symbols of the script represent sounds.
- phoe-krk 4y ago
  I don't know what kind it uses, but it's not phonetic, because the graphemes do not represent phonemes, despite your claims. If English was truly phonetic, to name a few examples again: the pronunciation of "are" would most likely be a prefix of "area", since the graphemes for "are" are present in "area"; "read" and "read" would be read the same, since the graphemes for "read" and "read" are identical; the words "freak", "steak", and "break" would end with the same phonemes, since the graphemes for "eak" suffix are identical... and so on.
  - taeric 4y ago
    If it was not phonetic, what "idea" would the letter "r" represent? That it can represent different phonetics depending on other rules doesn't change that it represents phonetics.
  - nkrisc 4y ago
    > the graphemes do not represent phonemes, despite your claims. I now suspect you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a phoneme is. What does the symbol “c” represent, if not two different phonemes? The letters in the English script represent sounds. Do you disagree?

The fact that it uses Latin letters doesn't make it phonetic if the same letter consistently resolves to different phonemes or lack thereof, depending on its context.

mlyle 4y ago

You may argue it's not a very good phonetic script, with all of the special cases present... But letters mostly represent sounds, unlike written languages where characters represent concepts. A computer program written with knowledge of a few dozen of the common special cases would pronounce >90% of English words correctly and be close on most of the rest, "cupboard" notwithstanding. Indeed, look at how well 80's-era speech to text did with this exact approach.

nkrisc 4y ago

It's phonetic because the graphemes (whatever they look like) represent phonemes. If English doesn't use a phonetic writing system, then what kind does it use? Ideographic? Syllabic?

oxfordmale 4y ago
English is an alphabetic language not a phonetic one. In a phonetic language, you can pronounce a word just based on its written representation. Just compare current and paste tense of read. It is spelled the same but pronounced differently. You can argue it is an phonetically inconsistent language. However, you will find most of inconsistencies occur in the most frequently used words, making it hard for a beginner.
- taeric 4y ago
  You are not wrong in idea, but you are wrong in specifics. Does English use a 1:1 phonetic language? No. Of course not. Just like most "functional programming" languages have a lot of differences between them. The colloquial use of the term is not nearly as precise as many think it is. Even looking up the definition of "alphabetic" shows that that is often for phonetic languages. :D
- nkrisc 4y ago
  It uses a phonetic script. The symbols of the script represent sounds.
phoe-krk 4y ago
I don't know what kind it uses, but it's not phonetic, because the graphemes do not represent phonemes, despite your claims. If English was truly phonetic, to name a few examples again: the pronunciation of "are" would most likely be a prefix of "area", since the graphemes for "are" are present in "area"; "read" and "read" would be read the same, since the graphemes for "read" and "read" are identical; the words "freak", "steak", and "break" would end with the same phonemes, since the graphemes for "eak" suffix are identical... and so on.
- taeric 4y ago
  If it was not phonetic, what "idea" would the letter "r" represent? That it can represent different phonetics depending on other rules doesn't change that it represents phonetics.
- nkrisc 4y ago
  > the graphemes do not represent phonemes, despite your claims. I now suspect you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a phoneme is. What does the symbol “c” represent, if not two different phonemes? The letters in the English script represent sounds. Do you disagree?