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Re: Future English

From:Elyse M. Grasso <emgrasso@...>
Date:Wednesday, February 9, 2005, 14:16
On Tuesday 08 February 2005 05:48 pm, Rob Haden wrote:
> On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 21:32:33 +0100, =?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F6rg?= Rhiemeier > <joerg_rhiemeier@...> wrote: > > >That's a good start! I'd like to see more of it. What are the > >sound changes like? > > Thanks. :) > > The sound changes are pretty simple, basically a simplification of the > current English phoneme inventory. Aspiration, rather than voicing, > becomes the primary distinction between stops. The vowels are simplified, > phonemically, into a classic 5-vowel scheme. > - Rob >
I think major simplification of the English phoneme inventory (especially the vowels) is unlikely without some really strong external impetus. It's like getting rid of kanji in written Japanese: you end up with so many homophones that ambiguity spikes. If the vowels flatten out, what methods will the resulting langauage use to counteract this ambiguity? If both vowels and consonants simplify, where does the meaning hide? If the phonemic invontory drops despite this problem, what causes this shift? (Recent dialectal drift seems to me to be more in the direction of increasing vowel weirdness, if anything.) -- Elyse Grasso The World of Cherani Station www.data-raptors.com/cherani/index.html Cherani Tradespeech www.data-raptors.com/cherani/tradespeech.html

Replies

Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@...>
Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>