LL-L "Orthography" 2006.01.15 (02) [E]

Sun Jan 15 20:38:30 UTC 2006

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   L O W L A N D S - L * 15 January 2006 * Volume 02
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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2006.01.13 (04) [E]

> From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
> Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2006.01.13 (01) [E]
>
> Ron quoted:
>
>> "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and
>> strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." [H. P. Lovecraft]
>
Sorry about not continuing the orthography thread but it was Friday 13th
last week and I had a million things to do. But when you put off
replying for a bit you begin to stand back and look at the big picture,
and I think that in doing that you do have to consider the ethical
implications of people like me, Ron, Gabrielle and Ingmar discussing
English orthography reform.

In the end, I suppose that all our opinions - or at least those that
aren't purely scientific, can only be taken as suggestions and that for
any of us to actually campaign either for or against a spelling reform
in English would be unethical.

Why? Simple enough: English isn't the mother tongue of any of us! It
should be up to those who do have English as their mother tongue -
whether Scottish, English, American, Australian or whatever.

So I think that as far as we four and perhaps some others in the
discussion are concerned, it has to be kept purely scientific and
theoretical - anything personal, rhetorical or activist is out of place.

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

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

Thanks again, Sandy, again for some thought-provoking input.

I agree with your assumption that our discussions have been purely 
theoretical, that none of us seriously intends being engaged in any real 
compaign (though I can speak competently only for myself).

> In the end, I suppose that all our opinions - or at least those that
> aren't purely scientific, can only be taken as suggestions and that for
> any of us to actually campaign either for or against a spelling reform
> in English would be unethical.
>
> Why? Simple enough: English isn't the mother tongue of any of us! It
> should be up to those who do have English as their mother tongue -
> whether Scottish, English, American, Australian or whatever.

I agree with you only rather tentatively.  Or I ought to say that I'm not 
quite sure at this point.  Why?

Sure enough: English happens not to be our native language.  I would fully 
agree with you if instead of about English we (the same quartet) had been 
talking about Afrikaans, Frisian, Danish, Tibetan or most any other 
languages.  It is a bit different in the case of English, I feel, and we 
ought perhaps not think in quite the same way about it, because English is 
the following:

(1) a native language
      (pertaining to none of us)

(2) the dominant or official  language of certain countries
      (Australia, England, Scotland and the USA: Sandy and Ron)

(3) the dominant and official  language of the British Commonwealth
      (pertaining to Sandy and Ron)

(4) the universal lingua franca
      (pertaining to all of us)

While on level 1 it is clearly a matter for native speakers to deal with, 
non-native speakers definitely have some stake in it, are certainly affected 
by how easily English orthography is acquired and maintained, and they are 
affected to varying degrees by any other type of English language planning 
(including maintenance of the status quo) as well.  In fact, you and I 
(among many others on the List) are just as affected by it as are native 
speakers, because we live and breathe English on a daily basis in 
English-speaking countries.

So, one way of looking at it is that there are three entities called 
"English":

(1) native English
(2) national English
(3) universal English

These belong to ...

(1) all native speakers
(2) all citizens and residents of English-speaking countries
(3) everyone

... respectively.

You might go further by arguing that the native level (1) is 
dialect-specific, itself consisting of two levels (though probably more 
levels if we wanted to be really scientific):

(1) native English (all native speakers)
      (A) native dialect/sociolect (all native speakers)
      (B) quasi-native standard/supraregional dialect (all that use it)

1.B starts to become interesting, since it seems to me to lead over to the 
next level of English as a national language (being used by non-native 
speaker citizens and residents), which leads to English as the international 
lingua franca of English-seaking countries and finally of the world.

In your particular case, even though you are a native Scots speaker, English 
is dominant/official in ...

(1) Scotland (your native country)
(2) England (your country of residence)
(3) the United Kingdom (your super-state of residence)
(4) the world

I have a feeling, thus, that in the case of English it is not as clear-cut 
as to who does and who does not get to provide input.  I wouldn't dream of 
making proposals pertaining, say, our Gary's Estuary English or our Mike's 
brand of New England English, but I am not so sure if I ought to have to 
leave the room when the topic switches to English as a national and 
international lingua franca.  So, it seems to me that "unethical" may be too 
strong a word across the board.

Summink te fink bou' praps?

Cheers!
Reinhard/Ron 

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