Re: Just a Little Taste of Judean (Part 2)

Kenji Schwarz wrote:

> On Sun, 11 Apr 1999, Tom Wier wrote:
>
> > Well, I wouldn't be surprised, but still the literacy levels would (a)
> > still be far below what would probably be required for spelling
> > pronunciations to start being introduced, and (b) they would be in
> > the wrong language ;-) .  Only the extraordinarily educated individuals
> > of society would have had been literate in multiple languages (and, as so
> > many languages had no literary histories to begin with, the unliklihood
> > is all the greater)
>
> FWIW, in many different local Chinese dialects there are (or were) largish
> numbers of 'spelling pronunciations', although the literacy rates in the
> speech communities in question were probably not much more than 5%, and
> possibly often much lower.  'Literary' phrases and pronunciations
> penetrated way way down the social ladder in premodern China.
Well... I'm not sure that is applicable here.  I mean, yes, it's similar in that
it's hypercorrection of sorts, but spelling pronunciation is specifically and
inherently tied to the hypercorrecter being able to read materials with which
he's unfamiliar, and then extrapolate pronunciations that have no currency
then.  When you take away the written element, how is this any different
than trying (and failing) to imitate a more prestigious dialect or sociolect?

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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

There's nothing particularly wrong with the
proletariat. It's the hamburgers of the
proletariat that I have a problem with. - Alfred Wallace
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