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

Robert Hailman wrote:

>Chaucer's English is Middle English, no? I thought that by that point it
>drifted away from phonetic spelling, but I could be wrong.
English spelling wasn't standardized until after Caxton set up the first
printing press in 1476. Chaucer died in 1400, IIRC. So until sometime after
the print press was introduced, people just spelled how they spoke. Caxton
himself wrote different words in different ways; and even in the time of
Shakespeare writing was not completely standardized: Shakespeare wrote his
own name in several different ways.



===============================
Marcus Smith
AIM:  Anaakoot
"When you lose a language, it's like
dropping a bomb on a museum."
   -- Kenneth Hale
===============================