New Spelling for the US?

[musickrazy106]

I think that the English we have now is perfectly fine. It may be a little difficult if you don't know it, but once you do it is very easy.  

[The Man who was Thursday]

musickrazy106

I think that the English we have now is perfectly fine. It may be a little difficult if you don't know it, but once you do it is very easy.

Which is why even seasoned writers still make spelling mistakes.  

[LilyJamesPotter85]

Okay, now that I have read everything up until this point. I just want to say that I agree with not changing the English Language. Yes some people have delexia, but they have teachers and people to help them, and they are not totally hopeless with our language. My friend has delexia and he has done well so far and he is a pre-med student at John Hopkins University and he would be upset if he had to learn the English Language all over again, because some Professor at some college decides that we need to simpify our language.  

[The Man who was Thursday]

::grumbles::

People wouldn't have to "relearn" the English language, people.  

[Ninfinity]

Considering it is the world's number one most learned and used language. Also, it is the second hardest to learn and read (we use 3 pronunciation keys at the same time). Britain had a vowel reform, a rather long time ago, and America had one spelling reform.

English sucks.

Dyslexia is the inability to interpret phonetics to visual text and vise versa, how my old high school dyslexic teacher explained it "I can understand it, I just have a hard time reading it aloud."

How my college English professor explained English "There is no Perfect English." Best quote he ever used in class as an example of perfect grammatical English but horrible diction and pronunciation "Hey assholes, ain't y'all got some ******** job like shitty work to be doin' ther?" My friends and I, in that class, laughed our asses off at that comment.  

[Sheep Kitchen]

Ehhh... methinks I'll start just speaking German. All the time. (I do want to live in Dresden...)

In anycase, I just sent this to my English teacher. xd  

[Fatal Hilarity]

Arcadia12

english is the most complicated language in the world
lets all speak japanese

Discluding Japanese, English is easiest language I've ever learnt.

How about Chinese, a tonal language with thousands of characters, as a more probable example?  

[Fatal Hilarity]

Ezra Pound

I have one word for you all:

Ghoti.


If you want, I also have another word for you:

Ghoughphtheightteeau.

Oh, that fish statement. I once wanted to write an entire post like that, but I have never gotten that bored.

I see a problem with this way of thinking though. Let's take the Turkish language as an example; in 1928 the Turkish government decided to replace the once Arabic alphabet with the Latin alphabet. In 1928 the Turkish alphabet was perfectly phonetic. Today, 78 years later, there are already obvious differences between the way words are pronounced and the way they are written.

The spoken language develops and changes quite rapidly, unlike the alphabet. Making all alphabets phonetic should create a number of problems:
1. Different dialects of the same language are about to be written in a completely different way; in languages that have many dialects, like Spanish, English, Arabic, French, etc, it might, especially with time, create a real problem for people who attempt to communicate effectively. Perhaps it could still work with English, but it couldn't work with other languages, like Arabic for example, as its dialects are too different from one another.
2. It will be, with time, harder and harder to understand older pieces of writing because the alphabet would change so rapidly. It means many important literary works of art would either be translated into the new English once in every century or so, or would just become unavailable to the general public.
3. It can just become quite a hassle to change the alphabet every few decades. As long as everyone understands the standard, and can understand that "enough" is read [inaf], I don't see a problem.  

[Xillania]

F. Fritzi

1. Different dialects of the same language are about to be written in a completely different way; in languages that have many dialects, like Spanish, English, Arabic, French, etc, it might, especially with time, create a real problem for people who attempt to communicate effectively. Perhaps it could still work with English, but it couldn't work with other languages, like Arabic for example, as its dialects are too different from one another.

Indeed. If everything was spelled phonetically, some people would spell "water" like "wahter" and some people would spell it like "wahtah". It'd be impossible to read anything that a Liverpuddlian wrote. The regional subsections of the English language would become easier for native speakers to handle, but they'd become infinitely harder for nonnative speakers to navigate. At least this way, it's always one way.  

[splashseal]

I think there are definitely good arguments either way, but there is no getting around the crazy spelling. Blame the Normans when they invaded England and somehow between their language, that of the Saxons, and everyone else...well, it was pretty much a recipe for linguistic disaster.

Simplified spelling would help no one though. English is definitely a spelling nightmare (unlike German, etc.) and I am not saying that I don't think the spelling is stupid half the time, but there does need to be some standard. Scrapping the whole system and completely revamping it is one way, but it is obviously highly unrealistic, and even if this were to be considered, well, there are a lot of linguistic details that would have to be taken into consideration.

The best thing is to just deal with the fact that English developed as it did, as well as the fact that it pretty much absorbs words of every other language. Considering that we have and still are getting along fine with it, then the better thing is to have proper English lessons in school, including grammar (I never learned until I took a French class, which is extremely sad).  

[The Man who was Thursday]

F. Fritzi

Ezra Pound

I have one word for you all:

Ghoti.


If you want, I also have another word for you:

Ghoughphtheightteeau.

Oh, that fish statement. I once wanted to write an entire post like that, but I have never gotten that bored.

I see a problem with this way of thinking though. Let's take the Turkish language as an example; in 1928 the Turkish government decided to replace the once Arabic alphabet with the Latin alphabet. In 1928 the Turkish alphabet was perfectly phonetic. Today, 78 years later, there are already obvious differences between the way words are pronounced and the way they are written.

The spoken language develops and changes quite rapidly, unlike the alphabet. Making all alphabets phonetic should create a number of problems:
1. Different dialects of the same language are about to be written in a completely different way; in languages that have many dialects, like Spanish, English, Arabic, French, etc, it might, especially with time, create a real problem for people who attempt to communicate effectively. Perhaps it could still work with English, but it couldn't work with other languages, like Arabic for example, as its dialects are too different from one another.
2. It will be, with time, harder and harder to understand older pieces of writing because the alphabet would change so rapidly. It means many important literary works of art would either be translated into the new English once in every century or so, or would just become unavailable to the general public.
3. It can just become quite a hassle to change the alphabet every few decades. As long as everyone understands the standard, and can understand that "enough" is read [inaf], I don't see a problem.

I think it's high time we did something about it, though. As Eddie Izzard said, "You spell it T-H-R-U, and I'm with you on that; for we spell it 'thruff', and that's just trying to cheat at Scrabble."  

[Fatal Hilarity]

Ezra Pound

I think it's high time we did something about it, though. As Eddie Izzard said, "You spell it T-H-R-U, and I'm with you on that; for we spell it 'thruff', and that's just trying to cheat at Scrabble."

But how are we to solve all of these problems? Things change every once in a while. You don't see the English equivalent to ß around anymore, and I don't see that as such a bad thing really. We must, though, set boundaries -what are we going to change, how, and how frequently? Because using IPA or anything of the sort obviously just couldn't work if we want the language to be useful.