English spelling reform

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Gwaimir Windgem
And what if the people who live in the USA prefer the British variants, like, oh, I don't know....me! Criticise away!

What makes the Britisyh variants superior to the American? What's the difference? They're just words.

[sun-star]

Originally posted by LutraMage
The English language does not need reform. As someone has already indicated, it is a living language and has reformed constantly over a period of about 1,000 years - and has many roots that go back for a 1,000 years before that.

Change will come when change is needed.

I agree with this. English spelling and usage changes all the time, as some ways become more common and others fall into disuse. The variety and diversity of the English language makes it incredibly special, and while this wouldn't necessarily change because of a few spelling reforms, I think it would be a pity to lose the history of our language which is contained in every word. That's why it annoys me when British people use American variants, because both versions should be preserved - they're both valid and valuable. At the same time, if the American usage takes over from the British one (or vice versa, not that it ever happens) - that's just how language works. It's beautiful.

Also, if we didn't have weird spellings with about ten ways of spelling every sound, we couldn't make puns. A great loss to humankind

[GrayMouser]

As far as I know, English has the worst spelling of any language to use the Latin alphabet, with French a close second.
I've heard that Spanish and Finnish are the best ( written forms corresponding to pronunciation)

The Korean Hangul system is also very good, since it was a deliberately created system (Korean, like Japanese and Vietnamese, originally used Chinese characters, with all the distortions that followed)

As for preserving the history of English through its spelling, how useful is it to most people to know that the "gh" sound in night and light was once a guttural? As for the Latinisers, a curse on them and their fruits- the "b" in doubt and debt, the "s" in island.

As Professor Tolkien once remarked, "an "h" in "Thames" is a folly without warrant."

(These guys are also responsible for generations of English teachers telling us "Don't split infinitives" or "Don't end a sentence with a preposition".)

The problem with any kind of writing reform is that pronunciation is always changing- unless you want to change the spelling every few years, you're still going to end up with the same problem.

Most problems with spelling come out in writing rather than reading. Though we use phonetics when we're first learning words, they're generally stored in our memory as 'whole units'.

This is true in the Chinese language reform movement as well- people learn to read the older "more difficult" characters just as easily as the simplified ones, but the latter are much easier to write- in fact most simplified characters come from the use of quick notes, merchant's writing etc- the sort of non-scholarly writing people used in everyday life.
Even here in Taiwan where the use of simplified characters is still technically illegal most people recognise the majority of simple characters because they use them in their own writing.

As for the 'femininity' of French, sometimes our feelings about other languages are driven by external forces- in the 18th and 19th centuries German was viewed as a very melodious language, suitable for a nation of Romantic dreamers- for those of us raised on WWII movies it has very different associations.

Sometimes, though, we derive our feelings from the sounds themselves- Taiwanese is a tonal language with a lot of frequently used descending tones, which in English are used to express anger. I'll often hear my neighbours having what sounds like a horrendous argument to me , only to look over and see them laughing together.

[azalea]

Originally posted by jerseydevil


Azalea -


Wimp was the wrong phrasing - more like flowery as I said in a later post. I don't think that women are wimps by the way.

I know. I just couldn't resist giving yo a virtual poke in the ribs.

Re: non-English speakers using their native tongue when people who don't speak it are around: I recently met my neighbors, who are from India, and speak their language at home. I was in their driveway about to leave their house and they were talking to each other about something unrelated to me, but they kept speaking in English. I thought that said something about their character, that they went ahead and spoke English while I was still there because to do otherwise would be rude, although I wasn't part of their conversation. That was very cosiderate (even though I really wouldn't have cared, because I love to hear them speak their own language -- any foreign language sounds pretty to me! )

Later edit: Maybe instead of doing the suggested reforms, we should all just quack like ducks.

[LuthienTinuviel]

Later edit: Maybe instead of doing the suggested reforms, we should all just quack like ducks

or we could all "arrgh" like pirates.

[wahine]

Originally posted by Linaewen
English has one of the most difficult and inconsistent spelling systems in the world. Many other languages have updated their spelling systems, with spelling reforms for German, Dutch and some Scandinavian languages to name a few. Even Chinese, which doesn't even have an alphabet, has simplified its spelling successfully. And Chinese has more speakers than English does.

Spelling reforms would make English much easier to learn and to spell, even for native speakers. I've read that if you had a small card with explanations of pronunciation for Spanish, you could get around in a Spanish speaking country with relatively correct pronunciation. A card for the same purpose for English would be roughly the size of a fridge.

There are many arguments for a spelling reform, some of which can be found at some sites including
Why English spelling should be updated

What do you think? Would a spelling reform be too impractical? But if it worked for Chinese, with a vastly different & incredibly complex spelling system, why not English?

Hmmm...

Why fix it if it isn't broken?

I understand if you want to be a lazy fool and not learn what needs to be learned.

But why change it when it's been working VERY WELL FOR A VERY LONG TIME?!?!?

[Sween]

Originally posted by wahine
Hmmm...

Why fix it if it isn't broken?

I understand if you want to be a lazy fool and not learn what needs to be learned.

But why change it when it's been working VERY WELL FOR A VERY LONG TIME?!?!?

its doesnt work very well for everyone! words been spelt diffrentaly to how they are prounouced etc etc! Also silet letters i mean whats the point? why for people who find it hard to spell and read can we not make it easier.

And dont accuse people of been lazy some of the hardest people i know cannot do English for one reason and another that is a very insultinbg remark (one which i have heard often through my life) just because you do not find something difficult doesnt mean other people dont