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

Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>
> On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, Robert Hailman wrote:
<snip>

> > That would explain it. Or perhaps, and I may just be showing my
> > ignorance as far as Korean goes, your generation adopted one of the
> > regional dialects as it's standard language, as opposed to the standard
> > languages of generations past.
>
> I hadn't thought of that one.  My mom is somewhat familiar with various
> Korean dialects and has described them to me, but possibly it was some
> dialect she wasn't familiar with...who knows?
Not me, that's for sure. All I know about Korean is that the writing
system isn't really a syllabary, but it looks like one, and that Korean
is spoken in Korea.

I try to be well informed, but at the end of the day there are some
things I know nothing about.

> The weirdest Korean experience I had was when we had a class trip up to
> the DMZ (well, as near as we could get!) and there was a Korean speaker
> presenting some topic or other to the other Korean tourists.  It was very
> odd--usually I can get the gist of what's going on, or figure out a fair
> percentage of words even if it's somewhat technical Korean, but this
> woman just sounded *different* and I couldn't even recognize very basic
> things, the pronunciation was that different.  That was in the north
> (well, of South Korea).  My mom tells me the people of Chejudo (Cheju
> Island), who have their own distinct subculture, speak with a noticeable
> "drawl" (or slowly at least) and their own sound-changes.
When I was in Germany, I was in some small Bavarian towns and I had a
similar experience. Normally I can pick out enough words to make out
your basic sentance, but some of the dialects I encountered has
something about them that I couldn't figure out. It was a similar
situation, but I can blame that in part on my inexperience in German.


<snip>

> > Ah. I find it odd that speakers of languages such as Korean would accept
> > these spelling reforms, but when a spelling reform is proposed for
> > English, it's laughed at. I happen to like the current English spelling,
>
> Why is it odd?  <puzzled look>
The odd thing is that the language that could (arguably) have the most
use for a spelling reform is the one where it's least likely to happen.

<snip>

> I have no idea how I read English, just that it happens.  I can read up
> to 1000 pages in a day (if all I do is read--if I'm also doing classes
> and homework, 400-500 is more typical) so I do read very rapidly, but I
> can't tell you how exactly it happens.  I do find that I don't process by
> words, but by phrases or chunks of words.  The one time I took a reading
> speed test (and my sister did too), we both maxed out the scores, and
> that was with us finishing the passages *before* time was called and they
> began asking reading-comprehension questions.  <bemused look>  I'd go
> back and reread the passage a 2nd or 3rd time and when they *finally*
> called time, I'd find that I wouldn't stop on a word, but on a cluster of
> words.  That's the only reason I know!
>
That's pretty fast! I wish I could read anywhere near that fast. The
only way I know I read by word recognition is that my eyesight isn't too
great, and I find I can usually read from the board without being able
to make out individual letters, and also in my own handwriting, the
letters tend to run together somewhat, but I can still pick out words by
their overall shape.

> I have had no respect for reading-speed tests ever since.  :-p
I could see how that could happen.

I have little respect for all types of tests, I never have.

--
Robert