Re: Optimum number of symbols

En réponse à julien eychenne <eychenne.j@...>:

>
> I believe French orthography to be not so phonetical, as a
> non-standard
> French speaker. In my idiolect, "paume" and "pomme" are both
> pronounced
> [pOm@] 'apple', I don't know about the final opposition /e/ vs /E/
> ("chanté" vs "chantais"). More generally, I don't do oppositions  such
> as mid-tense vs mid-lax. Distribution is :
> Lax allophones are only and always found in closed syllables.
> Tense allophones are only and always found in opened syllables.
>
Hehe, you're really from the South :))) .

> I don't know if you have these oppositions (but I think so, fix me ;))
My idiolect still has all these oppositions. In my case, spelling is nearly
phonemic.

> but I believe writing French is much harder when you have not,
> especially when you're not interested in etymology, that is to say in
> most of cases.
>
True, but I also think that spelling needs to be tailored for the needs of the
ones who make the most distinctions, because it's better for recognisability
that distinctions are marked even when they are not made by everyone, rather
than distinctions not to be made while many people make them.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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