Re: English diglossia
| From: | Joseph Fatula <fatula3@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, February 1, 2003, 2:13 |
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In looking at Mandarin, I'm starting to see something else that's pretty
useful with English spelling. Sure, it's a pretty sad phonemic system, but
I'm not sure that reforming it would be that easy anymore.
The words that are homophonous in one dialect are not in others. If they're
spelled the same in one place, then in places where they're pronounced
differently, people wouldn't have a clue what word was meant. They wouldn't
even be aware that a distinction was made.
Here's a few examples:
- root/route vs. rout /rut/ /r&ut/
- root vs. route/rout /rut/ /r&ut/
- clod vs. clawed vs. cloud /klAd/ /klOd/ /kl&ud/
- clod/clawed vs. cloud /klAd/ /kl&ud/
- been/bin vs. Ben vs. bean /bIn/ /bEn/ /bin/
- been/bin/Ben vs. bean /bIn/ /bin/
- been/bean vs. bin vs. Ben /bin/ /bIn/ /bEn/
- cow vs. Cal /k&u/ /k&l/
- cow/Cal /ce@l/
- batter vs. badder /b&dr/ /be@dr/
- batter vs. badder /b&t@/ /b&d@/
And any distinction involving r-dropping or not will be a mess. I'm not
very familiar with any of the r-dropping dialects, so if someone could tell
me some of the words that are made homophones by that, perhaps we could
figure out some of this here.
Joe
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