Re: English spelling reform

Andreas Johansson wrote, quoting myself:

> Daniel was trying to indicate English pronunciation by Swedish orthography
> conventions, so the mismatch is, as Christrophe'd say, a feature, not a bug.
Yes but I was replying to Tristan.

> >If I was writing this as though it were Gzarondan, it would read:
> >
> > An aatifycll lengridj yz a lengridj hzets byyn ...
> >
> >Note: Gzarondan doesn't have /N/ (my substitute: /n/) or /w/ (my
> >substitute: /r/). Also, not all the above is compatible with
> >Gzarondan phonological constraints, especially the word "language",
> >which breaks several rules.
>
> A Tairezan might've tried to indicate it as "en ártifishel lengidzh iz e
> lengidzh dhet ez bin". "ártifishel" breaks a pretty strong ban on long vowel
> plus consonant cluster, whereas "lengidzh" would have to be interpreted as a
> word "gidzh" with a fairly loosely asociated prefix "len-" (or
> alternatively, leng-idzh, leng-gidzh or lenk-gidzh) to keep stress on the
> second syllable.
A crude summary of Gzarondan stress rules: stress defaults to the
first syllable of the root word, but is attracted to syllables
beginning with /h/, /j/, /l/, /x/, /K/ or /r/. Some vowels,
namely /@/ and /l=/, cannot be stressed, and only a few vowels can be
stressed in the final syllable.

Since both English and Gzarondan default to first syllable stress,
the stress pattern is usually similar.

The phonological constraints broken by 'language' include:

  - Gzarondan doesn't have /N/ or /w/
      [we might substitute "lengwridj" /lEngUridZ/]

  - A syllable can't end with a cluster other than /nt/, /nd/, /mp/,
    and /dZ/ is a cluster. We might substitute /Z/, but a syllable
    can't end with a voiced fricative either.
      [we're reduced to "lengwric" /lEngUriS/]

The above is a plausable Gzarondan word, but probably not recognisable
as "language" to English ears [1]. If we had rendered it /lEngriS/, it
would still be plausible, since /gr/ is a permissable beginning for a
syllable.

Adrian.

[1] The /E/ would be [e] in this position, as an /E/ becomes [&] after
    /g/, /k/, /x/ or /j/ but remains [e] otherwise.