Re: Language changes, spelling reform (was Conlangea Dreaming)

On Thu, 12 Oct 2000, Robert Hailman wrote:

> Very True, Very True. Of course, one Reason that a Spelling Reform would
> have to be so drastic is that English Spelling has not been reformed in
> the past as the language changes. If they had, only a very minimal of
> Spelling Reform would be needed now.
>
> If I'm not mistaken, Old English was spelled more or less phonetically.
I'm told that Chaucer's English (sorry--I'm not too clear on the history
of English) was, indeed, phonetic.  (There are nice things about having
an English major as a housemate.)  From all the varied spellings in
Spenser's _The Faerie Queene_ I would guess that they were *all*
phonetic, just not consistent necessarily.  (I'm sure this is known for
sure one way or the other, I just don't happen to be the one(s) doing the
knowing.)

Chevraqis is phonetic, but that's because it was invented not too long
ago in Qenar.  It has problems when used to transcribe the Avren dialect
(separate country).  OC the Avren use logographs from a neighboring
country with a not-very-related-if-at-all language, which is probably
even worse.

Korean is mostly-phonetic but you can see some of the sound changes and
revisions if you compare the original alphabet with the one used today.

YHL