Re: Optimum number of symbols

Quoting "Mike S." <mcslason@...>:

> (2) Written English and French are basically phonemic, but contain
> nonphonemic characteristics which enhance the written language;
> A stricter phonemic implementation would remove these benefits;
> therefore pure phonemic systems are not necessarily ideal.
>
> This was the basic tack of Thomas Wier in his thoughtful post
:)

> on the German final stops, where he pointed out that a stricter
> phonemic interpretation would end up being less useful to the
> language's speakers.  This argument to me was valid, and although
> I pointed out that it could be argued that phonemics could be
> insisted upon anyway, I conceded that given the regularity
> if not elegance of the current German orthographic convention,
> I could see the benefit of occasionally compromising the
> phonemic principle to accommodate the morphemic principle.
>
> The problem is that the compellingness found in this argument
> proceeding from the German example does not extend well to
> English or French;
Well, wait just a minute here.  English has hundreds (if not
thousands) of pairs of words that, though morphologically
related, have become phonologically differentiated on the
surface due to the Great Vowel Shift.  E.g., "divide : division",
"explain : explanation", "opaque : opacity", etc., etc.
This kind of morphophonological alternation is genuinely
problematic for purely phonemic representations of what comes
out of our mouths.  These things are, like the German final
devoicing, inherent in the language...

>  I personally think both of these
> systems are atrocious, and this atrociousness stems from their
> *non*phonemic charcteristics that, on balance, are not
> enhancements in the least.
... that having been said, there a plenty spellings which have
been retained (1) because they helped a student population
which was assumed to know Latin forwards and backwards learn
and retain latinate English vocabulary well, or (2) sheer
chance.  Much as I advocate Classical educations, the number
of educated speakers literate in both English and Latin today
is vanishingly small by the standards of yesteryear, and chance
misalligned spellings is not a reason to do nothing.

=====================================================================
Thomas Wier          "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics  mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
University of Chicago "To join together diverse peaks of thought /
1010 E. 59th Street   and not complete one road that has no turn"
Chicago, IL 60637     Empedocles, _On Nature_, on speculative thinkers