Re: USAGE: No rants! (USAGE: di"f"thong)

Aw - I disappear for a few days to south Wales and return to find 164
emails waiting. I eagerly download them, hoping to read lots of stuff
about conlanging & find they're mostly - {stifles big yawn}- about
English spelling reform!

I don't know how many times this has cropped up on the list (quite a few
times IIRC). In my teens way back in the 50s I used to churn out English
spelling reforms with almost the same frequency as I did auxlangs (some
two or three a year). Proposals for English spelling reforms exist from
at least the 19th century. The market for English spelling reforms is,
like that for auxlangs, one where supply vastly outnumbers demand.

Whatever we think here, or however we vote, it ain't going to happen.

Of course the subject has spewed the inevitable YAEPT  :=(

What difference does it actually make to a phonemic spelling reform
whether one says [k_hjEt], [k_h&t], [k_h&?], [k_hatT_d] or any of the
other varieties of /k&t/. Obviously it ought to be spelled/spelt M-O-G  ;)

Sorry - this sounds like a rant. Well, I got tired of trashing so much
stuff   :)

But I seem to recall this started with someone questioning the spelling
'difthong'. As, I think, some pointed out, the advantage of the current
spelling 'diphthong' is that it ain't prescriptive. It caters for both
those who pronounce -phth- [pT] and those who say [fT] - same applies to
words like 'diphtheria'.
=====================================================

Michael Adams wrote:
[snip]
 > Russians, yes, based on current in I rememember 12th century
 > Greek. Cyrillic named for St. Cyril but done my his buddy St.
 > Methodius, Cyrill did Old Church Slovonic, talk about getting
 > creative with Greek inspired characters..

   :-D

Cyril died in 869, and his brother Methodius died in 885. Wow! - getting
creative with 12th century Greek - no wonder these guys are honored as
saints!
=====================================================

On a positive note - besides providing me with one laugh (or should that
be 'laff' to rhyme with 'staff', 'laph' to rhyme with 'graph' or 'lalf'
to rhyme with 'half'?) - it was re-assuring to see that a proposal to
reform Esperanto spelling did not start a flame war. I can remember when
such a proposal would probably have done so - thank goodness those days
have gone.

Tho I am not a fan of E-o spelling, I think it is, however, up to the
Esperanto community how they spell their language, just as it is up to
Marc Okrand & the Klingon community how they spell their language, etc.

Now, I've got that off my chest, I can get back to conlanging   ;)

--
Ray
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ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
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"A mind which thinks at its own expense will always
interfere with language."         J.G. Hamann, 1760

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