Re: English diglossia (was Re: retroflex consonants)

Jake X:
> > Why couldn't you have two spelling systems?  A Maggellic one, and a
> > non-maggellic one, with the Magellic one steadily being phased out?
> > It seems natural that the younger generation would prefer the Non-
> > Magellic one, and eventually it would be brought into use.
> What do you do with all the thousand years' literature spelled the old
> way? Will it all need to be "translated" by, erm, linguists?
It will be translated by your software. Your e-tablet will store millions
of books. When you open a book on it, you tell it your preferred typeface,
orthography, and so forth.

> What about the exciting feeling you get when you open an old book and
> smell the beautiful scent of dust from the book not being read for 150
> years? They can't translate that smell into the new edition. Someone born
> into the new spelling will have to either learn both the regular rules
> and the old wacky exceptions unless s/he wants to give up reading any
> old out-o'-print paperback never transcribed.*
Of course. Just as if nowadays you want to read books published four
hundred years ago in the original editions. Anybody with antiquarian
tastes or a fondness for the smell of old books would generally be
the sort of person with a taste for quaint orthography too.

Certainly I don't think that millions of innocent children should be
unnecessarily tortured by orthography, just so the tiny minority who
enjoy the smell of antique books will not be alone in having to learn
archaic spellings.

--And.

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