6 ms·

I‘m disappointed to see no mention of Tibetan orthography, which was formalised approximately 1000 years ago and has not changed since then — despite Old Tibeta

by bradrn 3y ago

I‘m disappointed to see no mention of Tibetan orthography, which was formalised approximately 1000 years ago and has not changed since then — despite Old Tibetan having split into around 50 different Tibetic languages during that time. This results in, for instance, the current Dalai Lama’s name being written བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho despite being pronounced Tenzin Gyatso, or the city of Shigatse being written གཞིས་ཀ་རྩེ Gzhis-ka-rtse. The effect is rather like writing French as if it were Latin.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
Quite a few languages do this now, or did until recently, e.g Greek (speak Modern Greek, write in the fossilized katharevousa standard), Finnish (speak spoken Finnish, write in the fossilized kirjakieli standard), and Arabic (speak an Arabic "dialect" -- mutually unintelligible separate languages at this point -- but write in the fossilized fusha standard), etc.
- cyberax 3y ago
  And English is also rapidly approaching this situation.
- bradrn 3y ago
  Those are a little different, though. As far as I’m aware, for the languages you listed, the orthography still corresponds fairly closely to the spoken language, even if there are some phonological and grammatical differences. (To add to your list of examples, this is also the case for Welsh.) I was talking about a situation where the relationship between the written and spoken languages is quite substantially obscured by sound change.
- tuukkah 3y ago
  Regarding orthographic depth, I think you can test your claim by asking people to read aloud some written text (or to write down something that you say). At least in Finnish, I think you will hear the "written standard", that is, the speaker won't translate from the written language to the spoken language as if there was orthographic depth. (In the other direction, you may have to ask people to "write in the dialect", because it's so common to "clean up" text by removing the colloquial features of speech.) The alternative, more common explanation is that there are two different registers of the language, one more suitable in writing and one more suitable in talking.
  - Sharlin 3y ago
    Finnish puhekieli could be compared to AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) in that in comparison to standard written Finnish, it has certain grammatical deviations that are nevertheless highly regularized.
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    > At least in Finnish, I think you will hear the "written standard" I wouldn't expect that to be the case at all, except for a small amount of intellectual, pedantic people. The vast majority of Finns reading kirjakieli aloud are going to subject it to many of the puhekieli sound changes. And of course, like with many other languages, if they speak a regional dialect with significant phonetic changes, they will apply those sounds instead of what is represented in writing. > The alternative, more common explanation is that there are two different registers of the language… Yes, exactly. The languages I gave as examples above, are typical examples of diglossia.
    - tuukkah 3y ago
      > The vast majority of Finns reading kirjakieli aloud are going to subject it to many of the puhekieli sound changes Then I'll be surprised. After all, that doesn't match the general understanding of Finnish having very shallow orthography (see e.g. the Wikipedia article). I'd be interested if you know research on this. But even making all the sound changes does not turn the standard written language into the colloquial language, which entails some vocabulary and grammar changes as well. Let me reformulate the experiment: Someone reads a text aloud as it's written and you ask if people still understood, if something was said incorrectly or even if they notised anything weird. It shouldn't be weird in any way, as you hear non-colloquial language all the time on TV etc. > if they speak a regional dialect with significant phonetic changes, they will apply those sounds Then I'll be very surprised. To begin with, wouldn't that in most cases go totally against the phoneme-grapheme correspondence of Finnish? Secondly, when you intend something to be read aloud in a non-neutral way (colloquially or in a dialect), you write it that way to begin with. Why would the reader translate neutral language to non-neutral language and how would the reader know which dialect to use? Finally, as the reader would be essentially translating the text from the standard language to the dialect, it would seem unnecessarily demanding for an otherwise simple task. > The languages I gave as examples above, are typical examples of diglossia. Finnish as a typical example of diglossia? The differences between the two registers are not that big to begin with, and it's a continuum with e.g. the languages spoken on TV falling mostly in some unspecific region in the middle. I do understand that the prevalence of the two extremes can be problematic to learners of Finnish as a second language, because in a way you have to learn two dialects at the same time even though one is mainly written and the other is mainly spoken, and you never know which exact spot on the continuum is used by someone.
- Sharlin 3y ago
  Should be noted that most Finns do write in puhekieli in casual contexts like instant messaging, and it's just as phonemic as kirjakieli, just with contractions and slight grammar differences.

by bradrn 3y ago

OfSanguineFire 3y ago

Quite a few languages do this now, or did until recently, e.g Greek (speak Modern Greek, write in the fossilized katharevousa standard), Finnish (speak spoken Finnish, write in the fossilized kirjakieli standard), and Arabic (speak an Arabic "dialect" -- mutually unintelligible separate languages at this point -- but write in the fossilized fusha standard), etc.

cyberax 3y ago
And English is also rapidly approaching this situation.
bradrn 3y ago
Those are a little different, though. As far as I’m aware, for the languages you listed, the orthography still corresponds fairly closely to the spoken language, even if there are some phonological and grammatical differences. (To add to your list of examples, this is also the case for Welsh.) I was talking about a situation where the relationship between the written and spoken languages is quite substantially obscured by sound change.
tuukkah 3y ago
Regarding orthographic depth, I think you can test your claim by asking people to read aloud some written text (or to write down something that you say). At least in Finnish, I think you will hear the "written standard", that is, the speaker won't translate from the written language to the spoken language as if there was orthographic depth. (In the other direction, you may have to ask people to "write in the dialect", because it's so common to "clean up" text by removing the colloquial features of speech.) The alternative, more common explanation is that there are two different registers of the language, one more suitable in writing and one more suitable in talking.
- Sharlin 3y ago
  Finnish puhekieli could be compared to AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) in that in comparison to standard written Finnish, it has certain grammatical deviations that are nevertheless highly regularized.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  > At least in Finnish, I think you will hear the "written standard" I wouldn't expect that to be the case at all, except for a small amount of intellectual, pedantic people. The vast majority of Finns reading kirjakieli aloud are going to subject it to many of the puhekieli sound changes. And of course, like with many other languages, if they speak a regional dialect with significant phonetic changes, they will apply those sounds instead of what is represented in writing. > The alternative, more common explanation is that there are two different registers of the language… Yes, exactly. The languages I gave as examples above, are typical examples of diglossia.
  - tuukkah 3y ago
    > The vast majority of Finns reading kirjakieli aloud are going to subject it to many of the puhekieli sound changes Then I'll be surprised. After all, that doesn't match the general understanding of Finnish having very shallow orthography (see e.g. the Wikipedia article). I'd be interested if you know research on this. But even making all the sound changes does not turn the standard written language into the colloquial language, which entails some vocabulary and grammar changes as well. Let me reformulate the experiment: Someone reads a text aloud as it's written and you ask if people still understood, if something was said incorrectly or even if they notised anything weird. It shouldn't be weird in any way, as you hear non-colloquial language all the time on TV etc. > if they speak a regional dialect with significant phonetic changes, they will apply those sounds Then I'll be very surprised. To begin with, wouldn't that in most cases go totally against the phoneme-grapheme correspondence of Finnish? Secondly, when you intend something to be read aloud in a non-neutral way (colloquially or in a dialect), you write it that way to begin with. Why would the reader translate neutral language to non-neutral language and how would the reader know which dialect to use? Finally, as the reader would be essentially translating the text from the standard language to the dialect, it would seem unnecessarily demanding for an otherwise simple task. > The languages I gave as examples above, are typical examples of diglossia. Finnish as a typical example of diglossia? The differences between the two registers are not that big to begin with, and it's a continuum with e.g. the languages spoken on TV falling mostly in some unspecific region in the middle. I do understand that the prevalence of the two extremes can be problematic to learners of Finnish as a second language, because in a way you have to learn two dialects at the same time even though one is mainly written and the other is mainly spoken, and you never know which exact spot on the continuum is used by someone.
Sharlin 3y ago
Should be noted that most Finns do write in puhekieli in casual contexts like instant messaging, and it's just as phonemic as kirjakieli, just with contractions and slight grammar differences.