<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CRon%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"MS Mincho";
panose-1:2 2 6 9 4 2 5 8 3 4;
mso-font-alt:"ＭＳ 明朝";
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:modern;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:-1610612033 1757936891 16 0 131231 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:SimSun;
panose-1:2 1 6 0 3 1 1 1 1 1;
mso-font-alt:宋体;
mso-font-charset:134;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 135135232 16 0 262145 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"\@MS Mincho";
panose-1:2 2 6 9 4 2 5 8 3 4;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:modern;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:-1610612033 1757936891 16 0 131231 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"\@SimSun";
panose-1:2 1 6 0 3 1 1 1 1 1;
mso-font-charset:134;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 135135232 16 0 262145 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-font-family:SimSun;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
span.hccdpe
{mso-style-name:hccdpe;}
span.ep8xu
{mso-style-name:ep8xu;}
span.ldacoc
{mso-style-name:ldacoc;}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">===========================================<br>
L O W L A N D S - L - 31 December 2008 - Volume 05<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
Please set the encoding mode to Unicode (UTF-8).<br>
If viewing this in a web browser, please click on<br>
the html toggle at the bottom of the archived page <br>
and switch your browser's character encoding to Unicode.</span><br>
===========================================</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br>
From: <span class="ep8xu"><span><span style="color: rgb(91, 16, 148);">Sandy Fleming</span></span></span><span class="hccdpe"> </span><span class="ldacoc"><<a href="mailto:sandy@scotstext.org">sandy@scotstext.org</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="hccdpe">LL-L "Orthography" 2008.12.26 (02) [E]</span><br>
<br>
> From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>><br>
> Subject: Orthography<br>
<br>
Thanks for the birthday wishes, Ron. Sorry if my emails are a bit<br>
untimely but my broadband is in a mess at the moment, it only seems to<br>
come up late at night, and then only sometimes. So if I'm lucky, this<br>
email might get sent out within a day or two!<br>
<br>
> In other words, written representation would equal spoken<br>
> representation. Etymological (or historical) information is not<br>
> provided in speech, and it would not be in writing either. If the<br>
> system is so designed, phonemic representation (which deals with the<br>
> basic, underlying level) would be applicable to a range of dialects,<br>
> unlike phonetic representation which (dealing with the surface, that<br>
> which is produced by application of phonological rules) is<br>
> dialect-specific and is only used for scientific and didactic<br>
> purposes.<br>
<br>
In my experience, most linguists would rather hit themselves over the<br>
head with a brick for enlightenment than do science :)<br>
<br>
I wouldn't even say we have a way of writing things phonetically. The<br>
IPA is just an extended alphabet for refined phonemics.<br>
<br>
Ron, a challenge for the New Year! You talk about written representation<br>
equalling spoken representation (is speech really a representation?), so<br>
I assume that you're proposing that this is a good thing? Can you put<br>
this on a scientific basis? Can you propose a theory of why<br>
written=spoken is a good thing in all cases (if that's what you're<br>
saying) and, most importantly, can you explain how the theory can be<br>
tested?<br>
<br>
Some thoughts...<br>
<br>
Even phonemic orthographies tend to be supported with a certain amount<br>
of morphography. Some examples of supporting morphography in English:<br>
<br>
o words written differently to distinguish them when
they're<br>
written context-free, eg pair, pear, pare;<br>
<br>
o words written shorter than phonemics would allow,
especially<br>
very common words, eg me, be, he, we;<br>
<br>
o special symbols used to represent things that are
tedious to do<br>
in the full representation, eg 54.<br>
<br>
Are you trying to say that these things are all bad? It's easy to object<br>
to homophone distinction as supporters of pure orthography tend to do<br>
(causing my brows to furrow, as I'm quite sensitive to selective<br>
arguments!), but the other two cases seem reasonable.<br>
<br>
Morphography aside, there comes a point when strict phonemic<br>
distinctions could be brought into question. For example, in English we<br>
write "child" and "children". Phonemically, this would have
to be<br>
something like "chyld" and "children". Is this necessarily
better?<br>
English seems to take what these days we call a holistic approach to<br>
spelling, is this necessarily bad?<br>
<br>
It's similar with the English plural, writing "s" when it's
pronounced<br>
"z". Considering that the pronunciation is predictable, why not keep
the<br>
orthography regular rather than regularising the phoneme-grapheme<br>
mapping?<br>
<br>
I'm not saying English spelling couldn't use some improvement or that<br>
historical spellings should be adhered to. For example, the -ible/-able<br>
thing could be regularised because most speakers have difficulty with<br>
it. But even this is some way to being sorted out: all new coinings are<br>
supposed to use the -able ending.<br>
<br>
I think the trouble with spelling reform isn't with the idea of reform<br>
itself, but the fact that reformers rarely allow the possibility of<br>
supplemental morphography (yet they never manage to really avoid it), or<br>
orthographic depth (which in my opinion is either helpful or pointless<br>
depending on the kind of language you're representing: just because<br>
something works in Finnish doesn't mean it's good for all languages, or<br>
even for Finnish!).<br>
<span style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"><br>
Sandy Fleming<br>
<a href="http://scotstext.org/" target="_blank">http://scotstext.org/</a></span><br>
<br>
----------<br>
<span style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"><br>
</span>From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>><br>
Subject: Orthography<br>
<br>
Thanks, Sandy.
I hope you had a nice birthday, and our Roger, the other birthday boy, too.<br>
<br>
I'll let your message sink in and will try to respond to it later, because I
had a rather full day today (definitely won't make it awake till midnight).<br>
<br>
Let me just say that your questions (if that's a word) are thought-provoking
(as usual).<br>
<br>
This doesn't mean that anyone else who wishes to do so should hold their
response.<br>
<br>
As I'm writing this, all of you up to Western Europe
have arrived in 2009.<br>
<br>
Happy New Year to all of us! Hopefully, 2009 will be a wonderful beginning of
better things to come.<br>
<br>
Loving regards and best wishes to all of you, Lowlanders! And kind regards from
our Kahuna too.<br>
<br>
Reinhard/Ron<br style="">
<br style="">
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p>