Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: OT: German reputation

From:J. 'Mach' Wust <j_mach_wust@...>
Date:Wednesday, December 15, 2004, 20:11
First: Learn the proper pronunciation of standard German (it's what the
orthography is based on).

Second: Learn the ß-rules.

Third: Read the explanatory posts.



On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 15:03:47 -0500, Pascal A. Kramm <pkramm@...> wrote:

>On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 01:02:27 +0100, Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>
wrote:
> >>Hi! >> >>"J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@...> writes: >>>... >>> It's one of the cases that clearly show the advantage of the new ß-rules: In >>> the old spelling, the pronunciation could be either /tSYs/ or /tSy:s/, in >>> the new spelling |tschüss| the only pronunciation unambiguously is /tSYs/. > >It clearly is NO advantage, also before the only possible pronunciation was >/tSYs/. > >>There are other examples where this ambiguity is good, because >>pronunciation is different with the dialect. E.g. 'Spaß'. My native >>pronunciation would be /Spas/, not /Spa:s/. So |Spass| does not >>correspond to my native pronunciation. > >Yes, the new spelling changes the pronunciation a good bit in many cases... > >>Anyway, I'll always try to stick to the old spelling, because it obeys >>the rules of etymology (e.g. [old spelling] 'aufwendig' is not from >>'Aufwand', but from 'aufwenden', so [new spelling] 'aufwändig' is >>misleading), and reflects the meaning of sentences less ambiguously >>(comma rules seem arbitrary now and writing separate what is one word >>e.g. by stress rules seems odd to me, too). > >Indeed, there are lots of cases where it is totally misleading, not only in >the spelling, but also if you would pronounce it after the new spelling: >"aufwändig" is pronounced clearly different from "aufwendig" (unless you >can't tell an "ä" from an "e" like the average English speaker). > >>In my view, learning to write takes only a few years, but the spelling >>has to be used a lifetime long, so ease of learning is absolutely not >>important. Or at least, has low priority. Moreover, I don't think >>the old spelling was harder to learn than the new one. I enjoy all >>the discussions about reforms of reforms and even about returning to >>the old spelling a lot. :-) > >That's absolutely right. I'd even say that the new spelling is more >difficult to learn and use, as it made things clearly worse. > >>But that's personal inclination, of course, and I do not want a war >>about German spelling here. If this posting starts one, I will not >>answer and I will also apologize for that mess. :-) > >Yes, that leads nowhere, so let's not do that. > >>Sorry for commenting at all, but I had to say that I like the old >>ß-rules much better, because it affects my ownd dialect (High German >>dialect, that is, not the local language) that I feel has been >>ignored. Therefore, I feel my L1 was damaged by the reform. > >The old ß-rules were much clearer and actually made sense. >Our L1 was not only damaged, but even viciously raped by the reform. > >-- >Pascal A. Kramm, author of: >Choton: http://www.choton.org >Ichwara Prana: http://www.choton.org/ichwara/ >Skälansk: http://www.choton.org/sk/ >Advanced English: http://www.choton.org/ae/

Reply

Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>