Re: English diglossia (was Re: retroflex consonants)

Kou:
> Sarah writes:
>
> >What IS the social cost of three-year-olds not knowing how to read?
[...]
> For advocates on the other side of the
> divide, it's like the time you're "wasting" or "losing" while
> learning to read in school could be spent on developing
> ground-breaking theories in biophysics, reading James Joyce instead
> of Dr. Seuss, or modernizing the motherland. It's not a concern I
> share
It's no so implausible that if children spend two of their first
seven years playing or learning more useful and more immediately
rewarding stuff, instead of learning English orthography, then
they might not only have more fulfilling childhoods but might be
more likely to go on to develop ground-breaking theories in
biophysics, enjoy James Joyce, or modernize the motherland.

And even though I myself don't develop ground-breaking theories
in biophysics, enjoy Joyce or, except indirectly in my role as
an educator, modernize the motherland, I still begrudge having
to learn unnecessary stuff such as needlessly complicated
software.

Peter Clark
> On Thursday 30 January 2003 01:50 pm, Sarah Marie Parker-Allen wrote:
> > What IS the social cost of three-year-olds not knowing how to read?
>
> None, really. I've heard the arguments and I just don't buy them. The
> plain and simple fact is that English dialects have diverged on such
> a wide scale that it would be impossible to invent a phonetic system
> to cover all of them
You are confusing reformed or regularized spelling with rigidly
phonetic spelling. Instead, compare each alternative system with
the current system and assess them on their intrinsic merits.

> Why do you think we have monthly "I pronounce word X this way" threads?
>         Want to cut the illiteracy rate? Boost educational funds and
> train parents how to parent better.
Money is not a panacea, as evidenced by the meagre rewards from recent
large boosts in state spending on health and education in Britain. There
need to be fundamental systemic changes, part of which might be spelling
reform. As for training parents how to parent better, lots of
governments would like to know the secret to how to achieve that
without turning the country into a Singaporean police state.

> A parent taking the time to read to a child on a regular and consistant
> basis is one of the best ways to promote literacy, and it promotes family
> bonding. Win-win, and a lot better for society in the long
> run then trying to change spelling
True. But that is not an argument against trying to change spelling,
just as the fact that ensuring that people's basic health and nutritional
needs are met is more important than parents reading to their children
is not argument against parents reading to their children.

>         No offense to the supporters of English spelling reform, but
> it's a lot like auxlanging in my mind; interesting in theory, but
> annoying, futile, and pointless in real life. I have no problem with
> toying with different schemes (much like the ideal auxlang discussion,
> rather than the usual flame-fest), but hypothetical simulations are as
> far as these proposals are ever going to get
My sense of political impotence and the futility of social and political
engagement is so great than I can barely bring myself to vote. But that
doesn't stop me engaging in political philosophy or thinking and
discussing how in principle our society could be improved. And that's
a good thing, because debate that at first seems entirely futile can
in the long run sway public opinion and eventually bear fruits. I have
observed it happening many times in Britain during my adulthood, and I
have to be thankful that there are people who, unlike me, not only
think up good ideas for progress and reform but also can be bothered
to proselytize them at a time when it seems futile to do so.

--And.