Re: USAGE: Shavian: was Re: USAGE: Con-graphies

Yahya Abdal-Aziz wrote:
[snip]
> I think it a fair conclusion, from the examples of
> English, Greek and Latin, that any language that
> achieves wide usage across a number of different
> cultures will find its phonemes, eventually, bent so
> far out of shape as to be unrecognisable.
Hardly so with Latin - the medieval & modern ecclesiastical
pronunciations are not so far removed from Classical. And altho
Byzantine & modern Greek have departed far from the ancient norms, you
can still tell how a Greek word will be pronounced in the modern
language from its spelling. You so often cannot do that in English.

[snip]
> classical Arabic.  I also seem to remember an
> argument that the widespread use of printing has
> helped to fossilise and stabilise many languages.
It has when combined with universal education. Indeed, as I showed in an
email a week or so back, there has in my lifetime been a distinct move
towards _spelling pronunciations_ in words such as 'often', 'pestle',
'porpoise', 'tortoise' inter_alia.


--
Ray
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http://www.carolandray.plus.com
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"A mind which thinks at its own expense will always
interfere with language."         J.G. Hamann, 1760