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IIRC Benjamin Franklin tried to make use of diacritics in his (U.S.) newspaper, and it didn't fly. English could use a spelling simplification, but it's not go

IIRC Benjamin Franklin tried to make use of diacritics in his (U.S.) newspaper, and it didn't fly. English could use a spelling simplification, but it's not going to happen -- it's too late and there's too much inertia in the current way of doing things. Also, FYI, the circumflex in ê in French isn't there to change how e is pronounced but to denote that after the e there used to be an s that has been dropped, and that's how it always is for the circumflex accent in French. Sure, être is not pronounced the same as it would be were it written as etre, but I think that's accidental and not really the essence of the circumflex accent in French.

dragonwriter 3y ago
> English could use a spelling simplification, but it's not going to happen Sure it is, continuously and gradually. > Also, FYI, the circumflex in ê in French isn't there to change how e is pronounced but to denote that after the e there used to be an s that has been dropped, and that's how it always is for the circumflex accent in French. Sure, être is not pronounced the same as it would be were it written as etre, but I think that's accidental and not really the essence of the circumflex accent in French. IIRC, and its been a long time since I studied French or made use of anything but the the most basic bits, for each vowel there is a consistent (in the general case, but there may be exceptions) pronunciation change associated with the now-elided “s”, so the circumflex serves both historical and phonetic purposes.
- cryptonector 3y ago
  > Sure it is, continuously and gradually. There has been no success to any attempts to regularize the spelling of English in... what, over a century now? Is the New Yorker still the only major publication insisting on using umlauts? :) I'm not saying that English won't evolve, mind you, only that English spelling will evolve [a lot] more slowly than the rest of the language. > IIRC, and its been a long time since I studied French or made use of anything but the the most basic bits, for each vowel there is a consistent (in the general case, but there may be exceptions) pronunciation change associated with the now-elided “s”, so the circumflex serves both historical and phonetic purposes. Wikipedia says it alters the sound of a, e, and o. But I would pronounce château and chateau substantially the same. I would pronounce fantôme slightly differently from fantome. Être and etre, on the other hand, would have substantially different pronunciations.
  - andrewem 3y ago
    The New Yorker’s eccentric diacritic is the diaeresis rather than the umlaut. https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/mary-norris-diaeresis https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/mary-norris-diaeresi...
    - adastra22 3y ago
      For those wondering, they are written differently in handwriting, but are typically displayed the same in fonts.
      - cryptonector 3y ago
        The interwebs tells me that | Whereas the umlaut represents a sound shift, the diaeresis indicates a specific vowel letter that is not pronounced as part of a digraph or diphthong. I.e., graphically there's no difference. Thus I don't really care to call it one word or the other. Sure, 'diaeresis' is more correct that 'umlaut', but most English speakers -I suspect!- are more likely to recognize the latter than the former.
        adastra22 3y ago
        As I said, there is a very distinct difference in writing. The umlaut is written more like ő with two short lines (handwriting only!) whereas the other is written ö (two dots).
        cryptonector 3y ago
        > handwriting only I'd have to see it. I'm not sure I believe it :) It might just be a stylistic thing that distinguishes not diaeresis from umlaut so much as German handwriting from others'. That is, it might be that Germans don't distinguish between the two themselves, and then also the French, the Spanish, etc. If that's the case then I'd say there's zero difference between the two. A test of this would be to ask a German person (or several, including linguists as well as non-linguists) to handwrite a German word that uses umlauts and also a non-German word that uses diaeresis, and if they write it the same then I'd conclude that there is no difference. And if it's handwriting only, then is there a difference as far as Unicode goes? No, there is not. In Unicode diaeresis and umlaut are the same (U+0308 Combining Diaeresis).

dragonwriter 3y ago

> English could use a spelling simplification, but it's not going to happen Sure it is, continuously and gradually. > Also, FYI, the circumflex in ê in French isn't there to change how e is pronounced but to denote that after the e there used to be an s that has been dropped, and that's how it always is for the circumflex accent in French. Sure, être is not pronounced the same as it would be were it written as etre, but I think that's accidental and not really the essence of the circumflex accent in French. IIRC, and its been a long time since I studied French or made use of anything but the the most basic bits, for each vowel there is a consistent (in the general case, but there may be exceptions) pronunciation change associated with the now-elided “s”, so the circumflex serves both historical and phonetic purposes.

cryptonector 3y ago
> Sure it is, continuously and gradually. There has been no success to any attempts to regularize the spelling of English in... what, over a century now? Is the New Yorker still the only major publication insisting on using umlauts? :) I'm not saying that English won't evolve, mind you, only that English spelling will evolve [a lot] more slowly than the rest of the language. > IIRC, and its been a long time since I studied French or made use of anything but the the most basic bits, for each vowel there is a consistent (in the general case, but there may be exceptions) pronunciation change associated with the now-elided “s”, so the circumflex serves both historical and phonetic purposes. Wikipedia says it alters the sound of a, e, and o. But I would pronounce château and chateau substantially the same. I would pronounce fantôme slightly differently from fantome. Être and etre, on the other hand, would have substantially different pronunciations.
- andrewem 3y ago
  The New Yorker’s eccentric diacritic is the diaeresis rather than the umlaut. https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/mary-norris-diaeresis https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/mary-norris-diaeresi...
  - adastra22 3y ago
    For those wondering, they are written differently in handwriting, but are typically displayed the same in fonts.
    - cryptonector 3y ago
      The interwebs tells me that | Whereas the umlaut represents a sound shift, the diaeresis indicates a specific vowel letter that is not pronounced as part of a digraph or diphthong. I.e., graphically there's no difference. Thus I don't really care to call it one word or the other. Sure, 'diaeresis' is more correct that 'umlaut', but most English speakers -I suspect!- are more likely to recognize the latter than the former.
      - adastra22 3y ago
        As I said, there is a very distinct difference in writing. The umlaut is written more like ő with two short lines (handwriting only!) whereas the other is written ö (two dots).
        cryptonector 3y ago
        > handwriting only I'd have to see it. I'm not sure I believe it :) It might just be a stylistic thing that distinguishes not diaeresis from umlaut so much as German handwriting from others'. That is, it might be that Germans don't distinguish between the two themselves, and then also the French, the Spanish, etc. If that's the case then I'd say there's zero difference between the two. A test of this would be to ask a German person (or several, including linguists as well as non-linguists) to handwrite a German word that uses umlauts and also a non-German word that uses diaeresis, and if they write it the same then I'd conclude that there is no difference. And if it's handwriting only, then is there a difference as far as Unicode goes? No, there is not. In Unicode diaeresis and umlaut are the same (U+0308 Combining Diaeresis).