Re: Regularized Inglish

Thomas R. Wier scripsit:
>
> Nik Taylor wrote:
>
> > "Thomas R. Wier" wrote:
> > > Why the arbitrary distinction? Wouldn't he say reading and writing are
> > > both equally important, even in the age of spellcheckers?
> >
> > I don't think it's arbitrary.  Having multiple ways of indicating the
> > same sound allows one to distinguish homophones, like /no/ as "no" and
> > "know", or however Regularized Inglish does it.
>
> Well, what I was saying is that saying reading takes precedence
> over writing is an arbitrary one -- there's no theoretical reason
> It is true, as
> John pointed out, that people read more often than they write,
> but that doesn't mean they don't need to write -- *everyone*
> needs to be able to do both (in our information society, usually
> every day), hopefully with proficiency.
Sure.  But it means that the needs of readers (efficient spelling-to-
sound algorithm, homonyms may be useful) overweigh the needs of
writers (efficient sound-to-spelling algorithm, homonyms are baggage)
as a matter of engineering trade-offs.  Plus there is the question
of backwards compatibility (for which "b&kwardz c@mp&tIbIlIti"
doesn't cut it, not by a long shot).

> That's the problem we're faced with:
> the orthographic system we have now is a mess: it's inconsistent
> even where it's trying to be consistent (as in, not adhering to
> phonemic spelling all the time).
Reforming the spelling to a Czech-style one-phoneme-one-sound
involves discarding too much of the past.  Regularized Inglish
can be transformed programmatically into Regularized Inglish
and (almost) vice versa: any such program for phonemic
spelling breaks down on homographs such as "bow", which is
/bAw/ for "bend at the waist", /bow/ for "arrow shooter".

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
       I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin