R: Re: Language changes,spelling reform (was ConlangeaDreaming)

Robert Hailman wrote:
> > The problem here is that English evolved far too quickly.
That's only part of it - what made it really complicated is that
dialects changed differently, and words were borrowed from different
dialects.  If there'd just been the one dialect, there'd've been no
problem, it would merely be complex, like French, but still regular.
For instance, earlier on this list, there was a discussion of <ea>,
which in MidEng represented /E:/, but in some dialects stayed, in some
became /ej/, and in others became /i/, creating contrasts like
heat/great/bread

> You're probably right. I've always wondered what made English change so
> fast
Sound changes caused most of the gramatical changes.

French has also changed radically over the past few centuries, in some
tenses, personal inflections have been virtually eliminated, and
pronouns have become clitics, and are evolving into new personal
inflections (like the famous "Moi, Marie, je la detéste" discussed a few
times here)

> I'm beginning work on a whole big language family, and I'm going to have
> one of the languages go through changes as fast an English did, keeping
> the spelling the same all the while - that should be interesting.
Yeah, most descendants of Utakassí will have conservative spelling
systems, which should create interesting alphabet/syllabry mixes, like
the /sw/ -> /f/ change would make the <su> syllable be <f> before
vowels!