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

Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>
> 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.)
Chaucer's English is Middle English, no? I thought that by that point it
drifted away from phonetic spelling, but I could be wrong.

The thing about English from when it was phonetic that I like is that
every word is spelled how it is pronounced, so by comparing two texts
from different parts of England from the same time, you get an insight
into how the two dialects were different from each other.

> 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.
Ajuk is phonetic, but only because I'm too lazy to make it otherwise, in
all honesty. I'm working on a language now (I'll post some stuff on it
when I get the chance) that's going to be an ancestor for a language
family, and I'm going to have some descendant languages that aren't very
phonetic at all.

> 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.
As long as languages keep adjusting their alphabet, or at least
spelling, with the sound changes, it won't end up like English.

--
Robert