LL-L "Language planning" 2006.01.18 (03) [E]

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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West) Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
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18 January 2006 * Volume 03
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From: Karl Schulte <kschulte01 at alamosapcs.com>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2006.01.18 (01) [E]

You have it all wrong! What should be done is to pronounce words as they
are spelled. Down with the Great Vowell Shift! Up with Middle English!
If it was good enough for Chaucer, who are we to differ? Seriously,
because of the vicissitudes of English history and the effect on the
language, the convergence of words (such as road and rode, through and
threw) and the Norse/Saxon "blending" which still gave us pairs of words
for similar things (shirt/skirt, ship, skiff), and the "plain and Fancy"
effect of Norman French vs Saxon (beef/cow, house/mansion) our language
is somewhat like a fruitcake. (For those unaware of them, fruitcakes are
an American and English and ?? tradition; a little cake, a lot of sugar
and rum and spices, plus a large amount of various candied fruits which
results in a unit density/weight that seems to counter laws of physics -
drop one on your foot and limp for days.) These are given every
Christmas by friends and grandmothers to unwilling loved ones who, I
suspect, give them to someone else, a process extending over many years,
as they never seem to spoil - germs would die a horrible death of
hardened arteries should they actually try to live inside one. Well, in
any case, we could attempt what the Norwegians have been doing for
generations, in returning the daily language to that of a former time,
stripping Danish, Dano-Norsk, Riksmal and drawing nearer to Old Norse,
which has never died in Iceland. 
I think that would be a wonderful development and erase spelling issues;
words would be pronounced as they are spelled. It would make us more
easily able to learn our brother languages in the Germanic family as
well as open older forms of English to general use (I like older grammar
reinstatement too.). Outside of the Spanish College and Norway and
Iceland and Greece's Katharevousa (a sort of old/new greek blend) has
anyone else attempted such a thing?

Karl Schulte

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