Portuguese language changes

[David A. Daniel]

Portuguese is peppered with umlauts (or has been up till now). Example:
"conseqüente" where it makes the u pronounceable - as in English, "kwent" -
whereas without the umlaut proscribed pronunciation would be "kent" as in
the word "quente" meaning "hot". Fact is, though, that everybody says kwent
and nobody writes the umlaut which is one reason they are doing away with
such things. I don’t expect there to be any conseqüent changes to the spoken
language.
DAD

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We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Joel S. Berson
Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2009 4:26 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Portuguese language changes



At 10/6/2009 02:14 PM, Mark Mandel wrote [quoting:
>Three letters will be dropped from the alphabet, umlauts will no longer be
>used for certain words, ...

"Umlauts" in Portuguese?  I am suspicious, and therefore immediately
discount the truth of the article.  (Only partly kidding.)

But no-one I think has commented on the likelihood that such an edict
can have any effect on a spoken language.

Joel

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