Re: English diglossia (was Re: retroflex consonants)

Jake X wrote at 2003-01-31 13:15:52 (-0500)
 >
 > Wuht du yu du with aul dhuh thowzund yeerz' litruhchir speld dhuh
 > ould way?  Wil it aul need tu bee "tranzlaytid" bye, uherm,
 > linggwists?  Wuht uhbowt dhuh eksyeting feeling yu get wen yu opuhn
 > uhn ould buuk and smel dhuh byutifuul sent uhv duhst fruhm dhuh
 > buuk naat beeing red four 150 yeerz?  Dhay kan't tranzlayt dhat
 > smel intu dhuh nu uhdishuhn.  Suhmwuhn bourn intu dhuh nu speling
 > wil hav tu eedhr/yedhr lrn bouth dhuh regyuluhr ruwilz and dhuh
 > ould wakee eksepshuhnz uhnles s/hee waunts tu giv uhp reeding enee
 > ould owt-uh-print payperbak nevr tranzkribd.
 >
 > Jake
 >

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.

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.


* Even for proper nouns - the surviving signatures of Shakespeare show
considerable variation (and none of them are spelt "Shakespeare").

Reply