Re: orthography and pronunciation

John Cowan wrote:
>Oskar Gudlaugsson scripsit:
>
> > In a 1000 years, 20th century English will probably be referred to as
> > "Classical English", and will be studied by a few nutballs.
>
>Quite likely.
>
> > There will be
> > diverse speculations about its sound inventory;
>
>Not unless there has been a fall of civilization in the meantime.
>Otherwise, our descendants will be able to read Chomsky & Halle and
>Trager & Smith in the original bits.
>
>         Not even the most diligently destructive barbarian can
>         extirpate the written word from a culture in which
>         the *minimum* print run of most books is 1500 copies --
>         there are simply too many books.
>                 --L. Sprague de Camp, _Lest Darkness Fall_.
>
Well, you don't need barbarians to wipe out written culture. You only need
engineers ...

Lemme explain: almost all paper used in books today is made from trees and
contains a certain amount of an acid which English name escapes me at the
moment. Thanks to this, the paper will selfdestruct in about a hundred
years. To quote the Swedish physist-novelist Peter Nilson, "in 2100 they'll
wonder why people ceased to write books in 1870".

In addition, diskettes only last a few years, while most other digital media
last a few decades. In the future the 1900s will probably be considered a
Dark Age ...

                                                           Andreas
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