Re: USAGE: Adapting non-Latin scripts

--- Tristan Alexander McLeay <conlang@...>
wrote:

>
> I'm not really sure that's a *problem* though. It's
> certainly not why
> the English orthography is a bit difficult to work
> with. As long as
> the rules were regular with how to spell sounds, it
> doesn't matter if
> we spelt /æ/ as "a", "ä", "æ" or "ae" and /ei/ as
> "ai", "aa" or "é".
There are times when I think that English lies
somewhere on a continuum between phonetic spelling and
abstract pictographic. It's not as precise as IPA, yet
not *quite* as arbitrary as spelling "house" as "QTPN"
and "mouse" as "BHDK".

English spelling, while not quite that extreme,
certainly blurs the line that supposedly connects
symbols to sounds while enhancing the line that
connects symbols directly to meanings, regardless of
sounds.

But instead of complaining, I suppose we should thank
our lucky stars we don't have even more exceptions to
the rules. We could, for example, use "gh" as the long
vowel marker and end up spelling "light" (which
already observes this rule) and "hoghl" (for "hole"
which does not yet follow this rughl.)

--gary

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