Re: Future English

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