Missatges: 14
Llengua: English
ceigered (Mostra el perfil) 8 de desembre de 2010 8.18.58
Interspel @ Vikipedio
I was having a look at this and thought it quite nice. The fact that morphemes are relatively left intact and that the main spelling change is a diacritic above the vowels that are stressed reminds me of pinyin w/ tones vs. pinyin w/out tones, in that there is very little difference and someone with enough experience in the language can still pick things out in the latter, but the former makes things easier even if it leaves the word largely unmodified.
I found it interesting though, as it creates a nice contrast against EO's spelling system, which was built for regularity from the ground up. Personally, I'd say I like the Interspel system since if allows flexibility in pronunciation while still giving readers an idea of what the long vowels are.
Anyone else feel that if this Interspel staged spelling-learning process and Esperanto were taught in schools that literacy skills would go up?
==
That said, after reading a bit more passages in the reform, I do feel there is a lack of an "English" essence to it. I for one miss my "gh"s and whatnot. But, on the flip side, there are some aspects I feel bring a bit more "forgotten" heritage to the language, as the naked -r's and the -l's remind me of Icelandic, as do the diacritics (which also seem somewhat Celtic). The unspecified pronunciations for "d" and "s" in word final position also seem nice, since I like pronouncing "learn" in the past tense as "learnt" (learned is "lurnehd" in my head, not the past tense of "learn"!
)
I was having a look at this and thought it quite nice. The fact that morphemes are relatively left intact and that the main spelling change is a diacritic above the vowels that are stressed reminds me of pinyin w/ tones vs. pinyin w/out tones, in that there is very little difference and someone with enough experience in the language can still pick things out in the latter, but the former makes things easier even if it leaves the word largely unmodified.
I found it interesting though, as it creates a nice contrast against EO's spelling system, which was built for regularity from the ground up. Personally, I'd say I like the Interspel system since if allows flexibility in pronunciation while still giving readers an idea of what the long vowels are.
Anyone else feel that if this Interspel staged spelling-learning process and Esperanto were taught in schools that literacy skills would go up?
==
That said, after reading a bit more passages in the reform, I do feel there is a lack of an "English" essence to it. I for one miss my "gh"s and whatnot. But, on the flip side, there are some aspects I feel bring a bit more "forgotten" heritage to the language, as the naked -r's and the -l's remind me of Icelandic, as do the diacritics (which also seem somewhat Celtic). The unspecified pronunciations for "d" and "s" in word final position also seem nice, since I like pronouncing "learn" in the past tense as "learnt" (learned is "lurnehd" in my head, not the past tense of "learn"!
) 
erinja (Mostra el perfil) 8 de desembre de 2010 14.32.30
No, I do not think Interspel would help.
Some years back there was a program in the UK to teach some kind of simplified spelling to young schoolchildren, to help them get to grips with reading and writing.
Some of them ended up adversely affected for life, as far as their ability to spell.
And then at the end they all had to learn "regular" spelling eventually so they had to learn to read twice. Furthermore their families were not able to easily read whatever they'd written with their simplified spelling. It didn't account for regional accents. And teaching a child 'simplified' spelling leaves them unable to get a sense, early on, for how words are properly spelled, and also unable to properly read any of the texts in their house written with standard spelling.
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If you really wanted to teach children to read with phonetic spelling, in my opinion it would be better to teach it as part of a foreign language. They can learn (for example) that Esperanto words are spelled like this and English words are spelled like that. Therefore the information they learn will never need to be re-learned, it will remain valid forever, and leave them with a useful skill (a second language), rather than some useless modified spelling system that will have to be unlearned later.
Some years back there was a program in the UK to teach some kind of simplified spelling to young schoolchildren, to help them get to grips with reading and writing.
Some of them ended up adversely affected for life, as far as their ability to spell.
And then at the end they all had to learn "regular" spelling eventually so they had to learn to read twice. Furthermore their families were not able to easily read whatever they'd written with their simplified spelling. It didn't account for regional accents. And teaching a child 'simplified' spelling leaves them unable to get a sense, early on, for how words are properly spelled, and also unable to properly read any of the texts in their house written with standard spelling.
---
If you really wanted to teach children to read with phonetic spelling, in my opinion it would be better to teach it as part of a foreign language. They can learn (for example) that Esperanto words are spelled like this and English words are spelled like that. Therefore the information they learn will never need to be re-learned, it will remain valid forever, and leave them with a useful skill (a second language), rather than some useless modified spelling system that will have to be unlearned later.
orthohawk (Mostra el perfil) 8 de desembre de 2010 17.23.45
ceigered:Interspel @ VikipedioThe main problem with English spelling (as with French and Irish) is the number of "silent" letters and variant spellings of single phonemes. E.g. "long vowels" (hAte, mEEt, nIce, nOte, cUte) would be spelled one way and one way only. since there is already a very recognized rule to make a vowel long (add "e" at the end), that would be the rule. The long "e" would be the most affected: meet/meat would then be spelled "mete." Night would become nite, etc. The schwa sound would be spelled using only one letter (maybe "a"?); that way the only distinguishing you'd have to do is whether an "a" was a schwa or a real "a" sound (short a or long a; the "ah" sound would be spelled with "aa."). IOW use rules already used in English, but make them THE rule for all instances of that phoneme.
I was having a look at this and thought it quite nice. The fact that morphemes are relatively left intact and that the main spelling change is a diacritic above the vowels that are stressed reminds me of pinyin w/ tones vs. pinyin w/out tones, in that there is very little difference and someone with enough experience in the language can still pick things out in the latter, but the former makes things easier even if it leaves the word largely unmodified.
I found it interesting though, as it creates a nice contrast against EO's spelling system, which was built for regularity from the ground up. Personally, I'd say I like the Interspel system since if allows flexibility in pronunciation while still giving readers an idea of what the long vowels are.
Anyone else feel that if this Interspel staged spelling-learning process and Esperanto were taught in schools that literacy skills would go up?
ceigered (Mostra el perfil) 10 de desembre de 2010 8.58.37
erinja:No, I do not think Interspel would help.I'm guessing though that the biggest problem there is that they're teaching a logical system then trying to teach kids an illogical system later on, and some of those kids mightn't have even stayed with the same curriculum. Had the entire speaker base used the same phonetical spelling as those schoolchildren, then they would have been spelling perfectly
Some years back there was a program in the UK to teach some kind of simplified spelling to young schoolchildren, to help them get to grips with reading and writing.
Some of them ended up adversely affected for life, as far as their ability to spell.
@Orthohawk:
What's IOW?
And My Goodness! Irish spelling makes English look regular!
(and Danish spelling also leaves a lot to be desired but at least it's like a regular form of English... with random glottal stops). 
Roberto12 (Mostra el perfil) 10 de desembre de 2010 11.01.10
I agree with erinja (yay) and what orthohawk says is sensible too. I was very interested in English spelling reform a couple of years ago, and I think something very similar to SoundSpel would be best. It retains the English "look", it works well enough, and it doesn't introduce accents. But I wouldn't change the status quo because the old system is just too rooted and too universal.
Something else important is that a new "regular" system would actually still be problematic, because of how many different dialects of English there are in the world. This can easily be seen if multiple people from around the world all write message in a new system and compare them. It's shocking how "screwed up" other people's dialects can then seem.
Something else important is that a new "regular" system would actually still be problematic, because of how many different dialects of English there are in the world. This can easily be seen if multiple people from around the world all write message in a new system and compare them. It's shocking how "screwed up" other people's dialects can then seem.
ceigered (Mostra el perfil) 10 de desembre de 2010 11.21.23
@ Roberto - Luckily, *most* dialects have the same basic phoneme distinction, jsut different sounds.
Unfortunately, you've got 30 different sounds you'd need to differentiate between (but there ARE some ways to cut corners and still be relatively impartial - it's possible, but hard and needs real-world testing, which is where stuff gets complicated!)
IPA for En Dialects.
That Soundspel makes me peaved off - some months ago I had been proud of myself for creating what I thought was a pretty decent alternative orthography for English, and now I see that someone already had those ideas! ARGH!
Anyone else have those immature moments where one thinks to themselves "if it wasn't for Newton, Einstein and Egyptians, I would have discovered maths, nukes and gravity!"?
But back on topic, I think the problem is that there are good things in each idea for a spelling reform, and like the idea of Unified Cornish, some time all these ideas about how English should be spelt have to be put in the same bag and sorted out according to usefulness, whether they abide by the spirit of the language, etymological relevance, and aesthetics.
Half the problems would be nutted out if we split the germanic and romance roots of the language into two different sections and applied regular spelling and pronunciation rules to each according to the needs and nature of each, but whoever wants to take that job up needs to have a lot of spare time on their hands, a lot of patience and be relatively well received by the anglosphere lest any good work go to waste if noone takes it up.
Unfortunately, you've got 30 different sounds you'd need to differentiate between (but there ARE some ways to cut corners and still be relatively impartial - it's possible, but hard and needs real-world testing, which is where stuff gets complicated!)
IPA for En Dialects.
That Soundspel makes me peaved off - some months ago I had been proud of myself for creating what I thought was a pretty decent alternative orthography for English, and now I see that someone already had those ideas! ARGH!
Anyone else have those immature moments where one thinks to themselves "if it wasn't for Newton, Einstein and Egyptians, I would have discovered maths, nukes and gravity!"?
But back on topic, I think the problem is that there are good things in each idea for a spelling reform, and like the idea of Unified Cornish, some time all these ideas about how English should be spelt have to be put in the same bag and sorted out according to usefulness, whether they abide by the spirit of the language, etymological relevance, and aesthetics.
Half the problems would be nutted out if we split the germanic and romance roots of the language into two different sections and applied regular spelling and pronunciation rules to each according to the needs and nature of each, but whoever wants to take that job up needs to have a lot of spare time on their hands, a lot of patience and be relatively well received by the anglosphere lest any good work go to waste if noone takes it up.
erinja (Mostra el perfil) 10 de desembre de 2010 14.57.41
However the English-speaking community wouldn't agree on the best alternate method of spelling, so each person would have to learn multiple methods, since surely each English-speaking country would make its own choices about what's suitable. So everything would finish up much more complicated than it is today, and it would be best to stay with our current spelling.
Roberto12 (Mostra el perfil) 10 de desembre de 2010 18.09.50
Re inventing things that have already been invented, "great minds think alike"
ceigered:@ Roberto - Luckily, *most* dialects have the same basic phoneme distinction, jsut different sounds.I'm not sure about this. There is, for example, the story of the Americans to whom the words "marry", "merry" and "Mary" are all pronounced the same, whereas for other people (like me) they're all different. And within the UK, there's the old chestnut of /U/ and /V/.
Half the problems would be nutted out if we split the germanic and romance roots of the language into two different sections and applied regular spelling and pronunciation rules to each according to the needs and nature of each [...]Great idea! ...but still confusing to people who don't know the etymologies?
ceigered (Mostra el perfil) 11 de desembre de 2010 12.04.08
Damn, I missed the part about etymologies! ARGH! Fine, we'll teach that in schools too LOL! (well, technically there ARE ways of ensuring that people always know a romance word when they see one, but then we might as well split English into English and Anglic, and thats a pain in the tush )
I admittedly also pronounce "marry", "merry" and "Mary" relatively the same too, but it's not quite as bigger problem I guess, at least compared to the current mess.
What's this chestnut of /U/ and /V/? I'm not familiar with the phonetic representation being used (I'm guessing it's X-Sampa), but I am now interested...
@ Erinja, too right. Alas, the hope for reforming English would have to be an indirect attempt at helping the community feel able to do so as a whole, which unfortunately does not seem to be the case for those not readily familiar with such issues. If everyone learnt Esperanto, then we'd no problem as it'd give people a sort of "linguistic awareness", but alas that seems fairly impossible, and indeed the different English communities going their separate ways seems even more likely (which would be stupid).
Oh well!
)I admittedly also pronounce "marry", "merry" and "Mary" relatively the same too, but it's not quite as bigger problem I guess, at least compared to the current mess.
What's this chestnut of /U/ and /V/? I'm not familiar with the phonetic representation being used (I'm guessing it's X-Sampa), but I am now interested...
@ Erinja, too right. Alas, the hope for reforming English would have to be an indirect attempt at helping the community feel able to do so as a whole, which unfortunately does not seem to be the case for those not readily familiar with such issues. If everyone learnt Esperanto, then we'd no problem as it'd give people a sort of "linguistic awareness", but alas that seems fairly impossible, and indeed the different English communities going their separate ways seems even more likely (which would be stupid).
Oh well!
orthohawk (Mostra el perfil) 11 de desembre de 2010 13.22.23
Roberto12:this problem can be largely dealt with by using a Revived Cornish model: "However you pronounce the "short o" this is how you spell it"
Something else important is that a new "regular" system would actually still be problematic, because of how many different dialects of English there are in the world. This can easily be seen if multiple people from around the world all write message in a new system and compare them. It's shocking how "screwed up" other people's dialects can then seem.