Re: English diglossia (was Re: retroflex consonants)

Tristan scripsit:

> Becoz(?) it completely avoids aul that hassle ov having(havving?) to
> lern irregular spellings. If yoo donte hav too spend a year lerning how
> too spell 'all', 'were' and 'word', yoo can spend it lerning how to
> spell 'contrary', 'unfortunately' and 'antidisestablishmentarian' (or
> whatever it is).
Great job!  It is still "having"; "havving" would be *more* regular, but
in fact "having" is regular enough not to worry about.  It's also still
"don't", though a word "dont" pronounced the same way would indeed
become "donte".

> Becoz if oanly (shorely 'oe' would make the sound /i:/ e.g. oestrogen
> but nun with it making /ou/) sum wurds change, we donte need too spend
> thousands of dollars or pounds or euros or whotever the local currency
> is changing billions of wurds, and becoz of my first comment.
It is "oenly"; it's true that initial "oe" doesn't occur except in words
like "oestrogen" (spelled "estrogen" in RI as in N.A. spelling today),
but RI generalizes "oe" to all positions as the long sound of "o".

--
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all.  There
are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language
that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.
        --_The Hobbit_