Re: Modifying Latin letters for English

abrigon wrote:

> I think alot to do for the same reasons for no spell changes. Tradition
> more than anything else..
True -- see my comments below.

> Also cause alot of people still look to Rome
> as the center of the Universe or atleast Latin and Greek and they just
> don't want to let go.
Well, probably not Rome.  Rome's influence in today's world is analogous
to that of Egypt or Assyria or Sumer in helping to mould the Mediterranean
world of the late 1st millennium BC.

> Of course as the 21st century comes on, English will be forced to change
> some or be relagated to the dust bin..
Rather than being forced, it will simply change.  Languages need no
prodding when social innovation occurs.  If the English language
does not change to keep up with social change, it will be indicative
of something wrong not with the language itself, but with the society
that nurtures it -- that the English speaking world will have suffered
some cataclysmic change in its present position.

> From:    Roland Hoensch <hoensch@...>
>
> True enough.  So why is the latin alphabet not modified for English?
Because I think in part the idea of spelling academies and
official spelling changes has always been held, right or wrong,
as anathema to the "ancient liberties" which English speaking
peoples think to be their cultural inheritance. It is a perceived
invasion on the rights of people who think that "if it ain't broke,
don't fix it", and is related to the same phenomenon we find in
America, where people stubbornly hold on to e.g. the old
Customary system of measurement, even when it's annoying
and generally pernicious (as was evidenced a couple months
ago when a NASA Mars probe mission failed due to confusion
of metric and customary systems).

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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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