Re: English diglossia (was Re: retroflex consonants)

> On Friday 31 January 2003 8:44 pm, Jake X wrote:
> > > Let's not exaggerate.  Literature hasn't been spelled "the old way"
> > > for anything like 1000 years.  "Whan that Aprille with his shoures
> > > sote / The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote, / And bathed
> > > every veyne in swich licour, / Of which vertu engendred is the flour;"
> > > etc.  Late 14th Century.  Standard spellings for words didn't really
> > > exist until dictionaries became popular in the 18th century*.  So in
> > > practice you're looking at less than 300 years of mostly consistent
> > > spelling.
> >
> > I'll give you that, and I was aware of this.  I really must admit I got
> > carried away
> > in that email, it was partly out of fun.  But spelling would be a
serious
> > issue if the reforms were as drastic-- and as weird-- as they were in my
> > email.  This from a person who learned how to spell by staring at a word
> > for a long time to see if it "looked right."
> >
> > > Still, that's hardly a negligable amount, and probably accounts for
> > > the majority of books in existance.  Certainly there would be a
> > > certain amount of difficulty, in the event of a language reform.  RI,
> > > at least, follows current conventions well enough that most old words
> > > would be recognizable (as I understand it).  Also, it's a lot easier
> > > to learn to read odd spellings of familiar words than it is to produce
> > > them.  It doesn't take much practice to become used to the spellings
> > > of familiar words in Middle English - the difficulty comes from words
> > > which are obselete, which wouldn't apply in this case.  I suspect that
> > > the kind of people who enjoy "the beautiful scent of dust from the
> > > book not beeing read for 150 years" would probably be willing to learn
> > > to recognize old spellings.
> >
> > It's spelled obsolete.  I usually wouldn't correct like that, but this
> > time, it's in the spirit of the thread.  hehe
> >
Joe scrub:
> What is odd, is that I spell 'spelled' as 'spelt', more commonly. Is this
the
> beginning of the reform?
It may be a difference between U.S. and UK style spelling, but I'm not sure.
I
have always pronounced it [lr=nd], so I spell it that way.  I also
prounounce
"spelled" [spEld], so that's how I spell it.  Maybe in places where it is
prounounced
-[t] for those words, that is how it is spelled.  Personally, even when I do
use
-[t], I always spell it -|ed|.  Not sure why.  Can't trhink of an example of
that at
the moment.

Jake

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