Re: French and German (jara: An introduction)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph Fatula" <fatula3@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 12:53 PM
Subject: Re: French and German (jara: An introduction)


> From: "Andreas Johansson" <andjo@...>
> Subject: Re: French and German (jara: An introduction)
>
>
> > > Are you sure these people are not referring to the old German
> > > orthography,
> > > i.e., the printing customs of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
> > > that
> > > were reformed?
> >
> > Well, I don't know, but some of the flakkers have been people I would be
> very
> > surprised if they'd read anything that old, in any language.
>
> This is one of the neat things about English - it hasn't undergone any
> serious changes in spelling for a good three hundred years, indeed, the
> written language is almost identical to that used in those days.  While
many
> may complain about the antiquated spelling of English, it has two distinct
> advantages: that people today can read things from hundreds of years ago,
> and that people who speak ever-more-divergent dialects of English can
write
> to one another without any problems.
>
However, the actual language has changed so much from the eighteenth century
that actually reading much in it is hideously boring.

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