Re: French spelling scheme

At 7:54 pm -0400 2/5/01, Oskar Gudlaugsson wrote:
>On Wed, 2 May 2001 21:19:14 +0000, Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>
>wrote:
>
>>But surely, on that argument:
>>"du chataeu"
>>"de l'homme"
>>"vieux chateau"
>>"viel homme"
>>
>>..should also become:
>>"del chateau"
>>"del home"
>>"viel chateau"
>>"viel home"
>
>In a sense :)
>
>This is all getting kind of out of hand... I should have made it clearer
>that my conspelling is more just "artistic" and "for fun" than "practical"
>and "serious". But I don't mind it being criticized :)
I realize you're not seriously reforming French spelling in the sense that
you think French will take it up.

BTW of course the _e_ in _de l'_ is rather different from that in _viel_
and _bel_ - it's silent  :)

As _de l'homme_ is pronounced /dlOm/, I guess I should've written:
"dl chateau"
"dl home"
"viel chateau"
"viel home"

Although spelling /dy/ as _dl_ seems odd, I do not see how it is any odder
than spelling /o/ as _al_.  But it still means that _el_ can be either /o/
or /ø/.

[snip]
>
>Hope I haven't wasted your gunpowder... :) :)
Wasn't meant to be gun-powder - merely pointing out what seems to me the
logical knock on effects of some of your proposals.

But it seems to me that tinkering around with French spelling is always
going to throw up problems like this.  Personally, I see no point in
reforming the orthography unless it's a radical reform to reflect 21st
century & not 13th century pronunciation (very much the same apllies to
English orthography).

In fact the more I see of your 'reformed French', the more I think I'm
looking at a conlang  :)

Why not use these ideas to develop a conlang and leave the French to write
their language as they please?

[snip]

>
>Hey, you're right about "trop"... Thanks! :)
C'est rien, mon ami!

>But that doesn't change my
>argument much; I'm still saying that representation of the underlying
>elements - wherever they may be - is both practical and necessary.
Yes, if the underlying element is actually pronounced in certain environments.

>>But IMO /pa(z)/ is very different from /bo/ ~ /bel/.
>
>... The rime of the word changes in a prevocalic environment... they seem
>to have that in common, as far as I can see. The level of change is
>admittedly different - I'd compare it to "bon" [bo~] ~ [bO~n] instead.
Hey, it's /bO~/ - all the modern French nasal vowels are low.  We have:
/bO~/ masculine before a pause or word begining with a consonant;
/bO~n/ (written _bon_) masculine before a word beginning with a vowel;
/bOn/ _bonne_ feminine in all environments.

To me /bO~(n)/ is definitely on a par with /pa(z)/ and not with /bo/ ~ /bEl/.

[snip]
>
>Not in the strictest sense, but it is a more useful guide to correct
>pronunciation than a strictly phonetic representation would be, IMHO.
Mais, je ne comprens pas.

A _strictly_ phonetic representation must, by definition, be an exact guide.

>I think we have differing views on how orthographies should work; I
>recognize and respect yours (which I believe to be of the "phonetic" kind),
>but do not favor it myself.
Personally, I don't see any point in reforming French or English
orthography unless it is to bring the orthography much closer into line
with current pronunciation.

French orthography IIRC reflects basically the 13th cent state of the
language when, e.g. {oi} was still /Oi/, 'soft' {c} was /ts/ and {ch} was
/tS/ and {beau} was [bj{w] etc.  Changing _au_ (Old French [aw]) back to
pre-13th cent. _al_ and pronouncing it as modern /o/ seems bizarre to me.

[snip]
>
>>And then, of course, we have those lovely words "tous", "six" and "dix"
>>where the final consonant can be pronounced /s/, /z/ or zero according to
>>context  :)
>
>That's a good point; I'd very much like any orthographic reform to clarify
>that whole thing. Perhaps it cannot be clarified, as there seems to be some
>idiolectic factor going on... Cristophe?
Not with those words AFAIK.  Apart from the small reform of using the same
final consonant rather than {s} for some and {x} for others, it's difficult
to see how one will improve matters.

I still think you'd be better off developing a conlang from this   :)

Ray.



=========================================
A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
=========================================

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