5 ms·

> its complete detachment between spelling and pronunciation. Whose dialect are you going to choose to render phonetically? Mine from the West Country, or th

> its complete detachment between spelling and pronunciation. Whose dialect are you going to choose to render phonetically? Mine from the West Country, or that of my friends from Newcastle? Will you standardise on short a in castle (Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England) or long a in castle (Restormel Castle, Cornwall)? Or should each person just write phonetically so that we have millions of idiolects?

littlestymaar 3y ago
Or you do it the French IIIème République way: you crush all linguistic diversity[0] from your country and standardize it all around the way it's spoken in London. Also, in English there's so much detachment from spelling to pronunciation than even choosing to write it down like a random[1] dialect would be an improvement: the problem with English isn't so much about “long a” vs “short a”, it's about “through tough thorough thought, though”. [0]: sure there's still some pronunciation differences between parts of France, but not much. And it has very little consequence on the spelling/pronunciation relationship. [1]: in practice, it could be the most commonly spoken dialect, or the dialect that has the most pronunciation in common with others).
- tough 3y ago
  in practice, it's usually the snob/spoken dialect of the capital city. See parisians thinking they're better than anyone else, non-french and other-french included. Im guessing london didn't implement this method because it's useful for them to keep differentiating themselves from the masses now that everyone can have education
gumby 3y ago
And then since pronunciation shifts, you’ll periodically want to have international treaties adjusting spelling, hyphenation, capitalization and other rules, as the German-speakers have done. Or freeze it once and for all as the French have chosen to do?
- mcv 3y ago
  I think the pronunciation shifts might be the real issue with English. All languages shift, but I've got the feeling that English shifts a lot more, faster and more dramatically than most languages. And I'm not sure why. Dutch seems to be quite the opposite: spelling changes a lot. The best way to read old Dutch texts is to sound them out in your head, because the words look totally different, but they sound the same. Hearing medieval Dutch is probably easier than medieval English, but medieval English is much easier to read.
  - astrange 3y ago
    > All languages shift, but I've got the feeling that English shifts a lot more, faster and more dramatically than most languages. And I'm not sure why. Probably because they go off to colonize very far away places and then develop separately. Isn't Afrikaans pronunciation shifted Dutch?
    - mcv 3y ago
      I've got the feeling that Afrikaans is more like old fashioned Dutch. It sounds a bit archaic and sloppy to me ears. I've got the feeling that most of the shifts in English don't come from the colonies, though, but more from mainland Britain. Various city accents rising in popularity and spreading their quirks around the country, like the recent i -> oi shift. Also, I heard recently that American is actually closer to how English used to be in the 17th-18th century than UK English, which has had more development, including color -> colour and that sort of stuff.

littlestymaar 3y ago

Or you do it the French IIIème République way: you crush all linguistic diversity[0] from your country and standardize it all around the way it's spoken in London. Also, in English there's so much detachment from spelling to pronunciation than even choosing to write it down like a random[1] dialect would be an improvement: the problem with English isn't so much about “long a” vs “short a”, it's about “through tough thorough thought, though”. [0]: sure there's still some pronunciation differences between parts of France, but not much. And it has very little consequence on the spelling/pronunciation relationship. [1]: in practice, it could be the most commonly spoken dialect, or the dialect that has the most pronunciation in common with others).

tough 3y ago
in practice, it's usually the snob/spoken dialect of the capital city. See parisians thinking they're better than anyone else, non-french and other-french included. Im guessing london didn't implement this method because it's useful for them to keep differentiating themselves from the masses now that everyone can have education

gumby 3y ago

And then since pronunciation shifts, you’ll periodically want to have international treaties adjusting spelling, hyphenation, capitalization and other rules, as the German-speakers have done. Or freeze it once and for all as the French have chosen to do?

mcv 3y ago
I think the pronunciation shifts might be the real issue with English. All languages shift, but I've got the feeling that English shifts a lot more, faster and more dramatically than most languages. And I'm not sure why. Dutch seems to be quite the opposite: spelling changes a lot. The best way to read old Dutch texts is to sound them out in your head, because the words look totally different, but they sound the same. Hearing medieval Dutch is probably easier than medieval English, but medieval English is much easier to read.
- astrange 3y ago
  > All languages shift, but I've got the feeling that English shifts a lot more, faster and more dramatically than most languages. And I'm not sure why. Probably because they go off to colonize very far away places and then develop separately. Isn't Afrikaans pronunciation shifted Dutch?
  - mcv 3y ago
    I've got the feeling that Afrikaans is more like old fashioned Dutch. It sounds a bit archaic and sloppy to me ears. I've got the feeling that most of the shifts in English don't come from the colonies, though, but more from mainland Britain. Various city accents rising in popularity and spreading their quirks around the country, like the recent i -> oi shift. Also, I heard recently that American is actually closer to how English used to be in the 17th-18th century than UK English, which has had more development, including color -> colour and that sort of stuff.