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> The reverse is not true though, there are many different potential ways to write a word that produce the same pronunciation. For any "real" language it's pro

> The reverse is not true though, there are many different potential ways to write a word that produce the same pronunciation. For any "real" language it's probably impossible to have a 1-1 mapping in both directions. French tries really hard to embed everything required for pronunciation in the spelling, but because of dialects and phonetic drift that leads to some pronunciations having multiple viable spellings. German seems more concerned with the other direction: for each pronunciation (in high German) there is one obvious way to spell it (barring some baggage around c/k/ck and s/ss/ß, but even that has rules that can be applied to mostly clear it up). The other direction also mostly works, the spelling-pronunciation mapping is fairly obvious even if you don't know the word, but it is more ambiguous than French (no way to differentiate e è é or ê; and ë is mostly inferred). English somehow seems to neither try to maintain a consistent spelling-pronunciation mapping nor a pronunciation-spelling mapping, nor a tradeoff between the two. At least unless you know the origin of the word and are aware of pertinent linguistic history of the last ~200 years, or develop a good heuristic understanding for those. Probably because of the amount of coordination required to maintain a decent mapping in either direction. Both France and Germany have influential central control on spelling.

masklinn 3y ago
It's also that french and german have somewhat purer linguistic roots, english started as a west germanic language, got admixtures of old norse, followed by massive injections of french and latin (roughly a quarter of the modern vocabulary, each), and uncontrolled pronunciation shifts. Written old english was quite regular and phonetically sound. It also had a fair number of diacritics (after latinisation). > For any "real" language it's probably impossible to have a 1-1 mapping in both directions. I understand korean is rather good in that perspective, but also that it has a relatively simple phonology and the korean script is constructed, it was designed from scratch for korean. Interestingly and not dissimilar to TFA's assertions, for a very long time it was only used by the common class and disdained by the aristocracy, 19th century nationalism and separation from china led to its revival.
- ochrist 3y ago
  It's a bit more complicated than that: https://brill.com/view/journals/ldc/6/1/article-p1_1.xml?language=en https://brill.com/view/journals/ldc/6/1/article-p1_1.xml?lan...
Sharlin 3y ago
> For any "real" language it's probably impossible to have a 1-1 mapping in both directions. As far as I know, Finnish is very very close to 100% phonetic: one letter, one phoneme, with some slight exceptions and some wiggle room when it comes to dialectical variation and loanwords, especially those with nonnative phonemes like /b/ or /g/. The velar nasal ŋ is the biggest exception, featuring in "nk" and "ng" (like in many other languages) and the rules aren't entirely straightforward. Another exception is that in spoken language a glottal stop or gemination can appear at some morpheme boundaries but isn't reflected in written text.
- skydhash 3y ago
  Haitian Creole is like this. There are a few phonemes that are represented by two letters, but the distinction is there both in writing and in speech.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  Except that written Finnish represents, well, written Finnish, which is an artificial standard frozen centuries ago that no one actually speaks outside a few formal contexts. The country has diglossia like, for example, Greece up to the 1970s. When Finns speak, they use puhekieli, spoken Finnish, and there are differing ways to represent spoken Finnish in writing, and different readings for that written representation depending on the person's native dialect.
  - Sharlin 3y ago
    That's quite correct, of course. Still, you can write puhekieli (as most of us do daily in informal textual communication such as IMs) and it's still very close to phonetic, although there are individual differences in how "spoken" and dialectical their written puhekieli is. Some common puhekieli traits like the widening of the diphtongs "uo" and "yö" to /ua/ and /yä/ are more rarely reflected in informal writing unless one wants to specifically underline or exaggerate the pronunciation (eg. for comedic effect, or in written fiction featuring persons speaking a dialect).
cyberax 3y ago
> For any "real" language it's probably impossible to have a 1-1 mapping in both directions. Ukrainian is pretty close. It helps that it doesn't have a lot of reduced vowels that sound indistinct, and that double consonants are very unusual. The only ambiguous part is stress, technically stress marks exist, but they are used only in dictionaries. In fact, most Slavic languages are _reasonably_ close to 1-1 mapping. Some are closer, some are further. For example, Russian has a lot of reduced vowels that you have to remember how to spell.
hilbert42 3y ago
"French tries really hard to embed everything required for pronunciation in the spelling, but because of dialects and phonetic drift that leads to some pronunciations having multiple viable spellings." Agreed, but this often leaves native English speakers perplexed for want of understanding. For example, an English speaker would likely contend that there's little or no difference in the pronunciation of Bordeaux and, say, 'Bordo'. Said speaker would also contend that the four-letter eaux is overkill for what could be satisfactorily replaced with just a single 'o'.
- YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
  Well, "o" and "eaux" are not pronounced the same in French. The "au" in the middle signals a real difference in pronounciation. Consider e.g. "deors" (outside) or "mouton" (sheep). Now try saying "de-eauxr-s" and "mout-eaux-n" (with a silent s and n). It's not the same sound.
  - seszett 3y ago
    'o' has two (or more) possible pronunciations: o and ɔ (open and closed), while "au" has only one: o "Bordeaux" is pronounced the same as "Bordo" would be, and "eaux" is the same as "ô" or "au". The rules for "o" are a bit complicated but it's mostly always open before two consonnants, like in "dehors" and the first occurence in Bordeaux. It depends a lot on local accent, but "cosse/Causses" have different "o" sounds in the standard pronunciation, while pose/pause have the same closed sound.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
      Thanks for correcting my spelling :) ... and my accent <_< I pronounce "Bordeaux" like in "eaux" but I guess I haven't heard it pronounced very often. I grew up in Greece and I speak French from an early age and haven't lived long in France so there's nuances I miss probably.
      - seszett 3y ago

masklinn 3y ago

It's also that french and german have somewhat purer linguistic roots, english started as a west germanic language, got admixtures of old norse, followed by massive injections of french and latin (roughly a quarter of the modern vocabulary, each), and uncontrolled pronunciation shifts. Written old english was quite regular and phonetically sound. It also had a fair number of diacritics (after latinisation). > For any "real" language it's probably impossible to have a 1-1 mapping in both directions. I understand korean is rather good in that perspective, but also that it has a relatively simple phonology and the korean script is constructed, it was designed from scratch for korean. Interestingly and not dissimilar to TFA's assertions, for a very long time it was only used by the common class and disdained by the aristocracy, 19th century nationalism and separation from china led to its revival.

ochrist 3y ago
It's a bit more complicated than that: https://brill.com/view/journals/ldc/6/1/article-p1_1.xml?language=en https://brill.com/view/journals/ldc/6/1/article-p1_1.xml?lan...

Sharlin 3y ago

> For any "real" language it's probably impossible to have a 1-1 mapping in both directions. As far as I know, Finnish is very very close to 100% phonetic: one letter, one phoneme, with some slight exceptions and some wiggle room when it comes to dialectical variation and loanwords, especially those with nonnative phonemes like /b/ or /g/. The velar nasal ŋ is the biggest exception, featuring in "nk" and "ng" (like in many other languages) and the rules aren't entirely straightforward. Another exception is that in spoken language a glottal stop or gemination can appear at some morpheme boundaries but isn't reflected in written text.

skydhash 3y ago
Haitian Creole is like this. There are a few phonemes that are represented by two letters, but the distinction is there both in writing and in speech.
OfSanguineFire 3y ago
Except that written Finnish represents, well, written Finnish, which is an artificial standard frozen centuries ago that no one actually speaks outside a few formal contexts. The country has diglossia like, for example, Greece up to the 1970s. When Finns speak, they use puhekieli, spoken Finnish, and there are differing ways to represent spoken Finnish in writing, and different readings for that written representation depending on the person's native dialect.
- Sharlin 3y ago
  That's quite correct, of course. Still, you can write puhekieli (as most of us do daily in informal textual communication such as IMs) and it's still very close to phonetic, although there are individual differences in how "spoken" and dialectical their written puhekieli is. Some common puhekieli traits like the widening of the diphtongs "uo" and "yö" to /ua/ and /yä/ are more rarely reflected in informal writing unless one wants to specifically underline or exaggerate the pronunciation (eg. for comedic effect, or in written fiction featuring persons speaking a dialect).

cyberax 3y ago

> For any "real" language it's probably impossible to have a 1-1 mapping in both directions. Ukrainian is pretty close. It helps that it doesn't have a lot of reduced vowels that sound indistinct, and that double consonants are very unusual. The only ambiguous part is stress, technically stress marks exist, but they are used only in dictionaries. In fact, most Slavic languages are _reasonably_ close to 1-1 mapping. Some are closer, some are further. For example, Russian has a lot of reduced vowels that you have to remember how to spell.

hilbert42 3y ago

"French tries really hard to embed everything required for pronunciation in the spelling, but because of dialects and phonetic drift that leads to some pronunciations having multiple viable spellings." Agreed, but this often leaves native English speakers perplexed for want of understanding. For example, an English speaker would likely contend that there's little or no difference in the pronunciation of Bordeaux and, say, 'Bordo'. Said speaker would also contend that the four-letter eaux is overkill for what could be satisfactorily replaced with just a single 'o'.

YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
Well, "o" and "eaux" are not pronounced the same in French. The "au" in the middle signals a real difference in pronounciation. Consider e.g. "deors" (outside) or "mouton" (sheep). Now try saying "de-eauxr-s" and "mout-eaux-n" (with a silent s and n). It's not the same sound.
- seszett 3y ago
  'o' has two (or more) possible pronunciations: o and ɔ (open and closed), while "au" has only one: o "Bordeaux" is pronounced the same as "Bordo" would be, and "eaux" is the same as "ô" or "au". The rules for "o" are a bit complicated but it's mostly always open before two consonnants, like in "dehors" and the first occurence in Bordeaux. It depends a lot on local accent, but "cosse/Causses" have different "o" sounds in the standard pronunciation, while pose/pause have the same closed sound.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
    Thanks for correcting my spelling :) ... and my accent <_< I pronounce "Bordeaux" like in "eaux" but I guess I haven't heard it pronounced very often. I grew up in Greece and I speak French from an early age and haven't lived long in France so there's nuances I miss probably.
    - seszett 3y ago