Heather Rose Jones:Irish Lenition & Orthographic Depth

[Elizabeth J. Pyatt]

Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 09:27:46 -0700
To: The Celtic Linguistics List <CELTLING at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
From: Heather Rose Jones <hrjones at socrates.Berkeley.EDU>
Subject: Re: Dorothy Milne:Irish Lenition & Orthographic Depth



>>>From: Dorothy Milne <dmilne at morgan.ucs.mun.ca>

>>
>>>
>>Hi all -
>>
>>    Some further comments, this time based on Nancy Stenson's
>>    response ...
>>>
>>>>   On the whole, though, it doesn't seem to be a horrible problem for
>>>>   learners once they get a grip on the concepts.  On the other hand, I
>>>>   know native Irish speakers who claim to be unable to read the
>>>>   language because of the spelling changes.  In those cases, it's a
>>>>   matter of having trouble giving up the familiar more than anything
>>>>   inherent in the spelling conventions, I suspect, along, no doubt with
>>>>   all sorts of sociolinguistic baggage about relative value of the
>>>>   languages and what's actually worth reading and such.
>>>
>>     Yes - I have often wondered at this statement by Irish speakers
>>     (or by Irish who went to school in Irish ) ... it can't really
>>     be true, surely, if even learners such as myself can read both
>>     systems of spelling. Yes, reading the older script/spelling
>>     takes me more _time_ .. but even at that, if I had to read in
>>     the old system for a few days, I would speed up soon enough.
>>     So this "I don't/can't read the new spelling" has to be code
>>     for something else, I think.
>
If you understand it as "I can't read the new spelling with the same
fluency and ease as the spelling I learned/grew up with" then I don't
see any reason not to take it at face value.  Anyone who reads with
even minimal fluency is doing whole-word/whole-phrase recognition,
and _anything_ that alters the visual pattern of the words is going
to change that.  You hear similar comment from German speakers who
learned to read when fraktur type was the norm, who claim that the
newer typefaces are "hard to read".

If a change in how language is presented forces one to go back pretty
much to sounding out words rather than doing whole-word recognition,
it will affect the speed, easy, and enjoyment of reading.  For a
somewhat exaggerated experiment, try reading IPA transcriptions of
your favorite fiction!

Heather
--
*****
Heather Rose Jones
hrjones at socrates.berkeley.edu
*****

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