LL-L "Orthography" 2004.06.04 (06) [E]

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From: John Duckworth <jcduckworth2003 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Orthography

Greetings, LOwlanders!

Ron said:

"It is similar in Arabic and Hebrew (and to a lesser degree also in Farsi)
in which vowels (at least short vowels) are usually not represented.

I would agree with what you say in the case of Farsi, but not in the case of
Arabic. There are a number of Arabic letters used in (the large number) of
Arabic loanwords in Farsi, that are only there for historical reasons. The
Arabic letters Tha, Sin and Sad, for instance are pronounced identically in
Farsi; Zay, Dhal, Dad, Za' are also all pronounced as a simple /z/ sound.
Urdu too is very somilar to Farsi in this respect, and preserves both Arabic
and Farsi spellings for historical reasons.

The fact that Arabic does not normally represent short vowels is not
actually a problem, since in the vast majority of words native speakers know
which vowels to pronounce (and in fact often have a choice of two or three),
and foreign learners need only know a few rules of grammar to know which
vowel comes where. The Arabic orthography is actually very regular.

Hebrew vowels are perhaps somewhat more problematic than Arabic, but I think
perhaps a greater difficulty with Hebrew orthography is that the majority of
modern speakers do not distinguish between certain pairs of letters in their
pronunciation. The so-called 'Oriental' dialect does, but this seems to be
in the minority. (I bow my head before Ron's greater knowledge in Hebrew.)
Surely modern Israelis must have difficulty knowing whether to write a word
with a simple or an emphatic consonant, for instance.

John Duckworth
Preston, UK.

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From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2004.06.04 (02) [E]

Ron stated some views which seemed to favour a spelling reformation of the
English language...

...which would probably be a great idea if I thought about it rationally
(just like I think Americans should finally drop their greenbacks and get
decent bills in different sizes and colours where you can see at first
glimpse how much money you have left and don't accidentally give out a
hundred instead of a ten)...

...but then, as I have outed myself before and have no reputation left to
lose...

... here goes: to me, a language is a living, breathing, SENSUAL thing, and
such a reform would kill its very soul. It would be like an "improved"
cybernetic horse which is perfect, calm and obedient in every respect, but
it would never grin when it quite accidentally stands on your foot, or take
a big step to the side when it feels you're already off-balance, and then
look down on you with an inquisitive smile... or nudge you when it feels
you're not up to snuff... if the English language were tamed and
"streamlined" to become a perfect tool for international communication - a
Stepford wife, for those who are familiar with the story - then I would kiss
it goodbye with the greatest regret and go look for a new lover with a sense
of humour who isn't ashamed of his own imperfections.

I'm quite a visual person (used to have a photographic memory, but my brain
gets more cluttered as I get older...), and seeing a word misspelled makes
me cringe in pain and sympathy... it was bad enough when we had to go
through the German spelling "reform" and "rauh", the word for "rough", which
looked plenty rough to me, suddenly became "rau" and completely lost its
character - like a woman in her sixties with one facelift too many. Picking
up an injured word and making it right is a bit like picking up an injured
bird and nursing it back to health (that's why I enjoy working as a
linguistic reviewer). There's a kind of music in those spellings that I have
known and enjoyed for decades that would just die and go away - maybe some
of you remember that old Star Trek episode where Data the cyborg who has no
emotions tries to learn to play the violin and gets the technique down to a
T and delivers a perfect performance - but even he notices that something is
missing, that his music is just not beautiful...

I am actually so visual that I can barely remember a word that I've heard
and don't know how to spell - as a matter of fact, every word anyone says to
me appears in writing in my brain, and then I read it from there (is there
anyone here who does the same)? This doesn't mean that I don't register the
quality of the voice, and I'm actually quite good at playing music by ear,
or remembering tunes - but even the words I say myself appear in writing on
my mental screen, and I therefore have a problem with words I've never seen
written.

Every word I know is an old acquaintance, a friendly face, and I would feel
a great sense of loss (as in the case of "rauh") if I didn't get to see it
again. Each word has its own character (that goes for numbers, too - my
favourites are twelve and twenty-four, they're honest, friendly and good
fun), and to me, that character has little to do with pronunciation (you'll
never hear me discuss glottal stops and fricatives, I couldn't care less -
that, to me, is music and ought to be left alone and just enjoyed as one of
the pleasures of life).

Now, if the spelling of the English language were to be severely reformed, I
would feel a terrible sense of loss. Of course it might make things easier
for some people - but why deprive anyone of the pleasure to get to know
those words in all their natural beauty, written the way they were meant to
be? And, just to prove that I haven't lost my marbles and can still see the
rational aspects: why would anyone think it's a good idea to "dumb things
down in general"? The human brain has been quite able to grasp the fine
details of English (French, German, you name it) spelling for centuries -
why expect less of those who live today? Let's face it - those who can't
spell now wouldn't be able to spell much better then.

Of course, I'm probably a bit of a hypocrite, because I find the Dutch
reformed spelling very handy, what with all those rules when to double
vowels and consonants and when to leave them alone... but if I had known the
old spelling first, I'd probably be just as sentimental about it. That's
because, to me, languages are basically love affairs...

Call me the Mae West of the Lowlands Forum... ;-)
Gabriele Kahn

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From: Ben J. Bloomgren <godsquad at cox.net>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2004.06.04 (01) [E]

Nat biing a lingwist, aid sei thaet wi shoed yuz a speling sistem beist an
ai pi ei, but wiDaut aekcuali raiting it. (T)at iz, rait laetin aelfabet in
a fonetik wei beist an a staendoerd speling.

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From: Ben J. Bloomgren <godsquad at cox.net>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2004.06.04 (05) [E]

What do the Tibetans and Mongolians do with their spelling? Theirs come from
the Indian languages, so one would think that they'd be somewhat phonemic
due to the syllabaries.

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Orthography

John wrote above:

> Surely modern Israelis must have difficulty knowing whether to
> write a word with a simple or an emphatic consonant, for instance.

Well, yes, several letters are nowadays pronounced alike, so the problem is
similar to that of Latin American Spanish (Castilian) who pronounce <s>, <c>
and <z> all alike as [s].

Ben asked above:

> What do the Tibetans and Mongolians do with their spelling? Theirs come
from
> the Indian languages, so one would think that they'd be somewhat phonemic
> due to the syllabaries.

They were fairly phonemic when they were first devised.  The problem is that
the spelling was fixed about 700-1000 years ago while the modern dialects
have changed considerably (thus similar to the case of English).  For
example, the Mongolian word for 'son' is pronounced something like [xu:] in
most modern central dialects, but in the vertical script it is still spelled
the equivalent of <köbegün>, the way it assumedly was pronounced around the
time of Gengis Khan. The capital of Southern ("Inner") Mongolia (a part of
China) is still spelled <kökekota> ("Blue City") but is now pronounced
something like [huh'hOt].  The Kokonor (a lake and a province in Western
China, Chinese Qinghai 青海 "Blue Sea") is written <köke nagur> but pronounced
[xoxe'nur] in Mongolian, and it is written <mtsho sngon po> but pronounced
[tSo:NOmpo:] in Tibetan.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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