LL-L "Orthography" 2004.06.05 (10) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 05.JUN.2004 (10) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Tom Maguire <jmaguire at pie.xtec.es>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2004.06.04 (02) [E]

Hello All,

Ron wrote:

  ....
> the core issue, which is that, in comparison with the vast
> majority of the world's languages, way too much time and effort goes into
> learning to spell and read English (and to learn to correctly pronounce
each
> word newly encountered while reading, which in the case of non-native
> speakers is a very large number).  This level of deficient orthographic
> predictability (which is similar in other extremely historical systems
such
> as Tibetan and vertically written Mongolian, as I had mentioned) is
> surpassed only by wholly or partly non-sound-based systems such as those
of
> Chinese, Japanese and precontemporary (mixed-script) Korean.  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.

My experience is with English as a second language learners. They mostly
pick up the language by exposure to reading texts and spelling is not a
big problem for them. In fact they spell English better than their
native Spanish or Catalan which have a much more sound based
orthography. This is probably true because they read very little in
their native languages and trust their ear when spelling.

...
> In an ideal case (namely where a system is truly phonemic) all you have to
do is learn the
> *system* (once, perhaps even in just a few hours, reinforced by reading
and
> writing practice) rather than the spelling of individual words (which goes
> on for the rest of your life).  Furthermore, this type of system is by its
> very nature interdialectal, because phonological differences (in the
> phonetic output) between dialects do not even enter the equasion in
reading
> and writing.

This is fine when talking of consonants but surely vowel sounds are
extraordinarily different. In a western culture I doubt that you could
rely on the consonants for spelling and leave vowels to the speaker to
fill in at will. Who would finally choose the written form of the
vowels? The economically powerful?

> However, as an American friend of mine said about this issue yesterday,
the
> attitude of the majority of English speakers (namely Americans) is such
that
> even otherwise universally applying metric standards will not be accepted
by
> the general public and their representatives, leave alone a "scary" thing
> like spelling reform, no matter how compelling arguments in favor of it
may
> be.  And who cares about all those poor people and foreigners anyway?

I agree that uniformity has not been seen as a virtue in English
speaking countries. However I don't see that as an argument for asking
foreigners how to speak or write your native language. (The next thing
they might set up an "Académie Royale" in Paris or Brussels to decide
what English spelling is acceptable and what not.) This kind of
prescriptive uniformity, accepted as the norm in many countries, is
decidedly unscientific.

Regards,

Tom

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From: Ruth & Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2004.06.04 (06) [E]

Dear Gabrielle Kahn.

    Would you say, with Mae West (was it Mae West) "A hard Language is good
to find?"

Yrs,

Mark

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