Re: Why my conlangs SUCK!!!
| From: | Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, January 22, 2004, 0:51 |
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On Wed, Jan 21, 2004 at 06:51:45PM -0500, Viktor Orenji wrote:
> >Most Chinese characters have a component that indicates basic
> >pronunciation, so English writing really is almost as complex as Chinese
> >writing and takes up much more space.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it true that (1) the pronunciation component
is outdated, much as English orthography is, and (2) it only applies to Mandarin,
so is no help for the many other Chinese langauges that use the same writing system?
> Myself, I stumble on a nanosecond "mind block" whenever I read English words with "-ight" like
> in "night" or with "-ought" like in "brought." English is not my first
> language...
Many native speakers stumble for more than a nanosecond on such
multitasking clusters. :) But I find English orthography very useful. I would
be the last to dispute the primacy of speech over writing, but when I
acquire new vocabulary, far and away the vast majority of the time it's
from reading text, not from hearing speech. And the spelling of a word
is often a much better clue to its meaning than is its sound.
-Mark