newspeak
[QUOTE=Fiona]Did they steal as much as we did?[/QUOTE]Dunno for German, but for Dutch, yes (the majority of words are borrowed, the proportion is somewhat less with commonly used words). Some of those words still keep the spelling of the original language, but over time spelling gets adapted. Certainly for words borrowed some time ago. I don't say it's completely phonetic, but you have a bigger chance of determining how a word is pronounced from seeing written.
So:
sigaret/sigaar (cigarette/cigar)
wijn (wine, from vinum)
kasteel (castle, from castellum)
paleis (palace, form palatium via palacium)
So:
sigaret/sigaar (cigarette/cigar)
wijn (wine, from vinum)
kasteel (castle, from castellum)
paleis (palace, form palatium via palacium)
I think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.
- Oscar Wilde
The church is near but the road is icy; the bar is far away but I'll walk carefully.
- Russian proverb
- Oscar Wilde
The church is near but the road is icy; the bar is far away but I'll walk carefully.
- Russian proverb
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Fiona
Grrr to data base errors.
Lestat. I don't know about those languages but I noticed that in French spelling is not so much phonetic as consistent (if that is not a distinction without a difference). I think the same is true of Spanish. So if you know the conventions, you cans see a new word written down and know how to pronounce it.This is nto true in English. I wondered if the spread of English is entirely political or whether some other feature of it compensates for the difficulty? I was looking at the "whole word" approach above, and it seemed to me that can only work because there is an enormous amount of redundancy in English which makes the message very robust in transmission. Does consistency of spelling reduce that in any way?
Lestat. I don't know about those languages but I noticed that in French spelling is not so much phonetic as consistent (if that is not a distinction without a difference). I think the same is true of Spanish. So if you know the conventions, you cans see a new word written down and know how to pronounce it.This is nto true in English. I wondered if the spread of English is entirely political or whether some other feature of it compensates for the difficulty? I was looking at the "whole word" approach above, and it seemed to me that can only work because there is an enormous amount of redundancy in English which makes the message very robust in transmission. Does consistency of spelling reduce that in any way?
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The Balance
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[QUOTE=Fiona]Sorry Lance. I was referrering to the original article. I do not see how you can simplify spelling in english along phonetic lines, because we do not pronounce things the same way. So a spelling which might be simpler for people in one part of Britain would be almost arbitrary in another. English spellling at present is not entirely arbitrary. It often relates to the language we stole it from and so there are some clues to spelling, though that is not always obvious. There would be no clues at all on the suggestion in the article and I think it would be harder for that reason[/QUOTE]
I see.. i havn't red the article yet...
Let's see if this is what you mean:
On the dictionaries, next to the word, there is the correct phonetic transcription with universal symbols. For example in my language the letter "A" is pronounced "a" while in english it is pronounced "eι"
or again the letter "C" in english is pronounced "si:" in italian "tςi"
the correct pronunciation for "word" in english is "wэ:d"
other pronunciations different from these one must be proper of some dialects and cannot be considered english.
I see.. i havn't red the article yet...
Let's see if this is what you mean:
On the dictionaries, next to the word, there is the correct phonetic transcription with universal symbols. For example in my language the letter "A" is pronounced "a" while in english it is pronounced "eι"
or again the letter "C" in english is pronounced "si:" in italian "tςi"
the correct pronunciation for "word" in english is "wэ:d"
other pronunciations different from these one must be proper of some dialects and cannot be considered english.
Sapientis est nihil facere quod se paenitere possit !
The Balance
Solem e mundo tollere mihi videor qui amicitiam a vita tollunt ! 
Non exiguum temporis habemus, sed multum perdimus. :mischief:
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The Balance
- Posts: 258
- Joined: Sun Jan 15, 2006 9:18 am
- Location: Islands of Langerhans
- Contact:
[QUOTE=Fiona]Grrr to data base errors.
Lestat. I don't know about those languages but I noticed that in French spelling is not so much phonetic as consistent (if that is not a distinction without a difference). I think the same is true of Spanish. So if you know the conventions, you cans see a new word written down and know how to pronounce it.This is nto true in English. I wondered if the spread of English is entirely political or whether some other feature of it compensates for the difficulty? I was looking at the "whole word" approach above, and it seemed to me that can only work because there is an enormous amount of redundancy in English which makes the message very robust in transmission. Does consistency of spelling reduce that in any way?[/QUOTE]Mainly political/cultural (first dominance of Britain followed by US), partly I think because it's threshold to entry (at least as a spoken language) is low, basic grammar being fairly simple (which is not the case for French for instance).
Simplifying spelling would make it even more attractive as a global language I'd say, because easier to teach and learn.
Oh and the whole word approach might also work in other languages. I think I've seen something similar in French.
Lestat. I don't know about those languages but I noticed that in French spelling is not so much phonetic as consistent (if that is not a distinction without a difference). I think the same is true of Spanish. So if you know the conventions, you cans see a new word written down and know how to pronounce it.This is nto true in English. I wondered if the spread of English is entirely political or whether some other feature of it compensates for the difficulty? I was looking at the "whole word" approach above, and it seemed to me that can only work because there is an enormous amount of redundancy in English which makes the message very robust in transmission. Does consistency of spelling reduce that in any way?[/QUOTE]Mainly political/cultural (first dominance of Britain followed by US), partly I think because it's threshold to entry (at least as a spoken language) is low, basic grammar being fairly simple (which is not the case for French for instance).
Simplifying spelling would make it even more attractive as a global language I'd say, because easier to teach and learn.
Oh and the whole word approach might also work in other languages. I think I've seen something similar in French.
I think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.
- Oscar Wilde
The church is near but the road is icy; the bar is far away but I'll walk carefully.
- Russian proverb
- Oscar Wilde
The church is near but the road is icy; the bar is far away but I'll walk carefully.
- Russian proverb