Re: Advanced English + Babel text
| From: | Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, November 1, 2004, 19:52 |
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On Sunday, October 31, 2004, at 11:15 , Pascal A. Kramm wrote:
> Here it is, my own take at an English spelling reform!
> Unlike many others, it doesn't make up some awkward far-fetched spellings,
> but rather stays close to the actual official Ipa pronunciations.
[snip]
> 1 Nau se houl wörld häd wan längwidg wis se säim wörds.
> 2 Djörniing ihstwards, men faund ä pläin in Shinar änd seteld ser.
> 3 Säi säid tu wan änaser: "Kam! Let's mäik brik änd börn it sarouli!"
> Säi used brik insted of stoun änd tar insted of mortar.
etc - the rest snipped.
..and that's not awkward and far fetched!!!!
I fail to see how using |s| to denote four _different_ phonemes, namely /s/
, /z/, /T/ and /D/ is "staying close to the actual IPA pronunciation". You
obviously have a different meaning for 'close' than I have.
Why is /dZ/ sometimes spelled |dg| as in |längwidg| and other times |dj|
as in |Djörniing|?
Also I notice that |f| is used to denote both /f/ (as in |konfjuhs|) and
/v/ (as in |häf|). And just to add to the fun, /v/ is also spelled |w| (as
in |ouwer|) and |w| can also denote /w/ (as in |wörld|)!
The RP /Q/ is spelled in three different ways:
|o| in |stopd| (where /t/ is spelled |d|); |a| in |impasibel|; |oh| in
|bikohs|
Having |säi| representing both "they" and "say" according to context is
IMHO making things worse than they are in the standard spelling.
As I see it, this is a proposal to change one set of irregularities by
another set of (apparently arbitrary) irregularities. That is hardly what
I call a _reform_.
Ah, but where's the unofficial homepage? They're usually more interesting
:)
Ray
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Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason." [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]
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