Re: American (was Re: Cants)

Indeed. Hearing English teachers babbling on about "Standard English" as if
they could stop the immense sound and spelling changes amazes me. It is as
though they attempt to stop what made "Standard English" standard in the
first place...

-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU] On
Behalf Of Benct Philip Jonsson
Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2003 6:26 AM
To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
Subject: Re: American (was Re: Cants)

At 17:14 13.12.2003, Greg Johnston wrote:

>American is essentially achieved by simplifying and complexifying English
>at once. The simplifying is effectively phonetically spelling almost every
>word, and not necessarily using proper grammar. This also complicates the
>language, as one does not know if "no" is being used as "know" or,
>literally, "no".
Well, that complexity is already there in
the spoken language, so you already know
how to determine from context whether /now/
is 'no' or 'know'.  The benefits of keeping
a traditional orthography full of alternative
spellings and silent letters hardly outweighs
the disadvantages.  The only real advantage is
continuity, but the real reasons English won't
undergo a spelling reform are political rather
than linguistic.

/BP 8^)
--
B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@melroch.se (delete X)
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