schedule

anda un naliu [And wrote:]

Re: schedule
> It is possible that this simply an irregular spelling, and indeed an
> irregular pronunciation, which does happen with vocab borrowed into ModE,
tho
> not normally. But I was hoping that one of our many pedants and
omniscients
> would know whether the spelling or pronunciation is irregular; it wouldn't
be
> if the word were from Greek (which I believe it not to be, but can't check
> right now). If the spelling merely followed the pronunciation, then it
ought
> to be spelt <sk>.
SOED:
# Late ME. cedule, sedule - (O)Fr. cédule
# - late L. schedula, small slip of paper,
# dim. of scheda (- Gr. skhe'de:) leaf of papyrus

So that perhaps explains some of it. Looks like it was respelled after the
L. original, after the pronunciation was set at /sed-/.

Schism, likewise, was respelled to look more like the Latin-from-Greek
original, but appears to have been borrowed from OFr as scisme/sisme. SOED
has: "The sp[elling] was assim. (XVI), as in Fr., to the L. form."

Other examples of this overkeenness, IIRC, include debt.


> ObConlang: The spelling of the conlang Namyuan [Dabj@], formerly
Ajitolujan
> [jaTOjHa] (h = inverted h), was fixed when the language was young. The
> pronunciation subsequently changed massively over the years, in the course
of
> it being quotidianly spoken in the head of its inventor; but the spelling
> remained the same, with the result that it approximates or exceeds the
> obscurity of French orthography. Further, rules that had formerly been
> phonological in nature became morphologized, as the phonological
conditions
> vanished through change. The results are that, as is also seen with some
> natlangs, the morphology makes more sense when formulated orthographically
> than phonologically.
> It appeals to me that this is the work of someone scarely even an amateur
> linguistician, and that the complexity and character of the language
results
> from its evolution in real time, an accelerated form of natlang change.
Ah, I've been meaning to ask about this for ages. Thanks for the reminder.
(Goes off on web search...)

James

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james@zolid.com  James Campbell  Zeugma--Our Life Is Design  www.zolid.com
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