LL-L "Orthography" 2008.12.15 (06) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 15 December 2008 - Volume 06
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From: Heiko Evermann <heiko.evermann at googlemail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2008.12.15 (04) [E/LS]

Dear Ron,

Pretty much any system will do as long as it ...

   - is typologically easy (i.e. not full of "exotic" letters and
   diacritics,
   - is easy to learn,
   - does not pretend to be a phonetic writing system,
   - represents *all* phonemes.

Well, what you also need is that it gets acceptance. Any change will
probably fail due to lack of acceptance, especially when a new system is far
away from what people already use. They would just say "Dissen neemoodschen
Kraam kann ik nich lesen." And thats it.

Sass made quite clear that where accuracy is required an *ogonek* be used
underneath an "e" ~ "ee" ~ "eh" and "ö" ~ "ö" ~ "öh" to mark them as long
monophthongs and thus distinguish them from their unmarked equivelents that
stand for diphthongs.

Well, it might have been nice to retain such a distinction. Actually I have
talked with Hein Thies (the author of the current Sass dictionary) about
that. His statement simply was: after decades of trying to teach people to
make a distinction they have finally given up. No one was willing to use the
ogoneks. The only thing they now do is to list alternative forms in brackets
like in
1) Deel, Delen : Teil
2) Deel (Dääl): Diele
where the lack of the brackets in 1 indicates that the e is "zweitönig)
or
1) öwer: über
2) Över (Euver): Ufer
where the lack of brackets in 1 indicates that the ö is "eintönig". And
that's all. More has not been possible. Blame it on the North German
"Dickköpp", but you should better accept that or you will end up like Don
Quichotte fighting against windmills with eintönig and zweitönig wings. Good
luck.

Non-distinction of diphthongs and long monophthongs leads to
mispronunciation among learners. Ideally therefore, they ought to be
distinguished everywhere. At a minimum, they must be distinguished in
reference and teaching material.

Well, the Sass does just that. Actually this system of indication is
mentioned under "Hinweise zur Aussprache" in the introduction.

The use of the German *Dehnungs-H* is becoming less and less controversial
as more and more people agree that it's kind of silly and certainly
redundant.

Likewise redundant and linguistically untenable is the Sass tradition of
representing final devoicing where and only where German spelling shows a
final voiceless consonant; e.g.

wide: *wiet* vs *wiede ...* (because of German *weit* vs *weite ...*)
but ...
dress: *Kleed* vs *Kleder (*because of German *Kleid* vs *Kleider*)

??? So what? It makes words more recognizable. Given the fact that most
people in North Germany know less Low Saxon than my 6-year old daughter,
this is highly neccessary.

What bothers me about the Sass system as it is *popularly* used (i.e. the
watered-down version) is that on the one hand it lacks necessary
distinctions and on the other hand it dictates unnecessary fluff such as the
*Dehnungs-H* and selective representation of final devoicing (which is a
phonetic detail and thus doesn't belong into a writing system other than a
phonetic one). In any case, the aim to make it look as German as possible
seems to override the need for consistency and integrity, and this seems
like a shaky foundation to me, as well as a disservice to learners, to say
the least.

How abowt teeching the English e propa sistem of raiting first, one that
aims for consistency and integrity, one that is not based on a way of
writing that became obsolete with the Tudor sound shift. Mait meyke lerning
English a lot esier for all the world. And good lack for teeching that
sistem in Scatland.



Kind regards,

Heiko

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

ßanks, Heiko.

Well, the Sass does just that. Actually this system of indication is
mentioned under "Hinweise zur Aussprache" in the introduction.


Which is what I indicated in conjunction with pointing out that people don't
follow it.

??? So what? It makes words more recognizable. Given the fact that most
people in North Germany know less Low Saxon than my 6-year old daughter,
this is highly neccessary.


I can't believe you said "highly necessary" …

ßäiing, sät Nors Dschörmäns ahr tuh damm tu diel wis a slait twieking of an
existing ßistem is ßatsch an oolt exkjus for duing nassing ebaut se
garbidsch!

For some reason people are not deemed too dumb to learn English, French,
Spanish, Russian or whatever, most importantly Dutch, complete with the
actual spelling of those languages. But for some reason (which may in part
be authors' and teachers' own shaky knowledge and proficiency) they are
considered too dumb to deal with a regularized version of the spelling of
the original language of their region. And they are considered too dumb to
"recognize words" without them being spelled non-phonemically to make them
look German. This is so lame and such a negative testament to the
intellectual acumen of the people! Why should they get spelling hints to
recognize words from a German perspective? Do they get such hints in Dutch,
which is similarly relatively closely related? To accommodate those
supposedly learning-challenged North Germans, should we spell *wijt* vs *
wijder* in Dutch like Low Saxon *wiet* vs *wieder* (when the proper phonemic
representations are *wijd* ~ *wijder* and *wied* ~ *wieder* respectively,
versus German *weit* vs *weiter*)? This is a total oddity among languages.

I strongly suspect that this double standard, this "special case" scenario
created for Low Saxon, goes back to people still not quite believing in its
status as a language in its own right. It pains me to see that even some
people that profess to be its champions buy into this reduced status. For
why else would people need to rely on constant reference to German in this
case and not in cases of other languages that people learn? It's a *different
language*. You don't know different languages by osmosis. You *learn* them,
and in the course of it you learn their spelling systems, whatever they may
be.

We are not talking about exotic new inventions here, just about slight
tweaking to regularize the existing spelling and to do the language justice.

I did say that the *New Sass* people at least made an effort by providing
explanatory forms in parenthesis, and I credited them gratefully.

How abowt teeching the English e propa sistem of raiting first, one that
aims for consistency and integrity, one that is not based on a way of
writing that became obsolete with the Tudor sound shift. Mait meyke lerning
English a lot esier for all the world. And good lack for teeching that
sistem in Scatland.


This seems like another curve ball. It has very little to do with the price
of tea in China. English orthography is another can of worms with its own
history, problems and arguments. At least, everyone recognizes and respects
English as a language in its own right, enough so to not want to take
orthographic hints from other languages to make English more understandable.

Kumpelmenten,
Reinhard/Ron
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