Re: USAGE: Fänyläjikyl Inglyx

And thus we touch at the heart of the matter.
The common writing system for Chinese is their... I do not
even know what it is called.  A part phonetic, part semantic
system of (and I use the term loosely) "picture writing".

Whereas English is using an alphabet.  An alphabet that has
distinct letters for vowels and consonants.  An alphabet whose
great achievement was a largely phonetic representation of
speech.

If the speech of various speakers differ that widely, why are they
all writing the same?  I feel the alphabet is not being made full
use of.

And yes, I do apologize, saying English is no more a language than
the Romance tongue is a bit of a stretch... a lot actually.  But I am
rather certain that English is going exactly the same way the Romance
tongues went.

Even if the big three somehow homogenize their dialects/languages,
other countries will make English genuinely their own.  Jamaica and
India will, I think with doubt, have their own English language given
time.j


----- Original Message -----
From: Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
To: Multiple recipients of list CONLANG <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 1999 4:38 PM
Subject: Re: F=E4nyl=E4jikyl Inglyx


> Roland Hoensch wrote:
> >
> > English is no more one language than the Romance tongues.
>
> Um, how do you figure?  I can understand various dialects, be they
> British, American, Candadian, Australian, whatever, without difficulty.
>
> > Dropping letters here and there, some words having different number
> > of syllables, etc. are just the beginning of a much larger English
> > breakaway.  It won't one man or a spelling system that breaks English
> > apart--English is already doing that for itself.
>
> Actually, from what I understand, the differences between the major
> dialects has DECREASED over the past 50 years.
>
> Besides, even if Spoken English did break up, it would still be useful
> to have a written standard, much as the Chinese languages are united by
> a common writing system.
>
> --
> "Old linguists never die - they just come to voiceless stops." -
> anonymous
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