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Traditional Chinese (and English) are sometimes called logographic writing systems
because they seem to be written in meaning signs rather than sound signs.
The basic problem with a logography is that it requires lots of memorization and take a long time to learn. It requires a good memory and a major investment of time and effort. A pure alphabetical system for English, such as the Webster dictionary spelling, takes 3 weeks to 3 months to learn. Compare this to the 4 years to achieve a 4th grade reading level in traditional English.
You need to memorize about 4000 word-signs to have a minimal grasp of a logographic writing system. You only need to memorize about 40 sound signs to achieve the same level of expertise in a near 100% alphabetical writing system. A logography could be 100 times more difficult than an alphabet for native speakers.
Many schools in China teach youngsters Pinyin first because it can be learned quickly. It would be similar to teaching Americans the Webster notation but this is rarely done. The closest we come is teaching phonics. Phonics teaches several alternate spellings (or spelling patterns) for each phoneme. Compared to Pinyin, it is quite messy. Phonics takes advantage of the fact that while English has an average of 14 spelling patterns per phoneme, this drops to 4 for the average number of high frequency spelling patterns.
By learning the high frequency spelling patterns, and the high frequency word-signs (or irregularly spelled words), the learner can make sense of over 75% of the words in the dictionary and a high number of words in a typical written paragraph.
All alphabetical writing systems are usually learned as logographies after ten years of exposure. This is because word-signs are much quicker to read compared to stringing together sound-signs to get to a familiar pronunciation.
You can reform the spelling in languages that are spoken in only one country, like Norway and Turkey did. But a language like English, which is the official language in dozens of countries, who would have the authority to dictate a new orthography that woiuld apply to the whole English speaking world? You'd have words spelled differently in every country. Written material would no longer be portable throughout the English speaking world, and you would have lost much more than you gained.
Some countries where a Pidgin English is spoken, in the Caribbean and New Guinea, have already respelled English in their own phonetics. Here is now English is spelled, the way it is spoken in Papua New Guinea:
You can reform the spelling in languages that are spoken in only one country, like Norway and Turkey did. But a language like English, which is the official language in dozens of countries, who would have the authority to dictate a new orthography that woiuld apply to the whole English speaking world?
At present English spelling has best, but inferior, connection with "Standard English" (Received Pronunciation – British; and General American). We others, who hav different dialects, hav to cope with that.
An upgraded spelling system would presumably still be based on "Standard English", but in a mor sensible and reliable way. We would all get on with it.
It could be that there would be an international English Spelling Academy set up to rule on the spellings of new words. Note, not a language academy.
The problem with semi-phonetic spelling is that it completely breaks down when adapting for other regions/countries.
Do you notice the dictionary pronunciation guide breaking down? It doesn't represent every dialect in the country. It represents the dialect that the majority find the easiest to understand. This is often called broadcast English.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Amelorn
Letter combinations will have slightly differing pronunciations.
Letters and combinations will have the sounds that are assigned to them in a phonemic notation such as the dictionary pronunciation guide. There may be letters that are purposely left a little ambiguous such as the letter o in mop. The assignment would be any phoneme between /A/ and /Q/ where q represents the common pronunciation in the UK and allows fox-dog to be spelled conventionally rather tha fox-dawg.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Amelorn
Your use of X to replace "th" is arbitrary, for example. Many centuries ago, English had two letters for the sound: Þ and ð (thorn and eth).
SB: Sound assignments can be a little arbitrary. There isn't much wrong with "th" other than it is used for both the voice and unvoiced consonant and that it is a digraph. The h becomes a marker or diacritic rather than a sound sign. Thus th is something other than /t/ and ch is something other than /k/.
Webster underlines the voice consonant. Thus th becomes /ð/ and th becomes /Þ/ or the IPA theta.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Amelorn
A number of spelling conventions in English actually serve a purpose.
SB: Do you want to elaborate? The basic problem is that few of the spelling conventions work more than 50% of the time. There are on the average 14 traditional or conventional ways to represent each of the phonemes in spoken English. See my page on spelling patterns. /ei/ = a..e as in ape and ale or ai as in pail. The IHS notation picks a..e as the standard and respells pail as pale. OGD notation makes ay the standard and respells pale as payl. Webster uses the macron a so both pale and pail are spelled pál. All of the assignments work or serve a purpose within a spelling system. None of them really work in TS which seems to mix incompatible systems.
A phonemic notation will indicate a correct pronunciation but it will not have a clear link to TS (traditional English spelling). The problem with IPA for TS adepts is that it doesn't look like TS. Webster is closer but is it close enough to avoid visual disruption?
I think that the equivalent sound spelling in Kayanne's notation would be enef, xoo, quu, plau, doo, end kof
one two heard beard bird ache mustache.
wən tu hərd bɪrd bərd ek məstæʃ IPA
wûn tü hərd bɪrd bərd ák məstash Webster notation
w in TS usually represents /w/ only in the initial position. Elsewhere it usually represents /U/.
Franklin dropped the w and y in his notation. *will became uil. *one was uµn or uan.
The English language is really dumb in terms of spelling but you would have to kill millions of traditionalists to make any change.
SB: Are you familiar with the number of written languages that have been updated in Europe?
For the older generation, the change was inconvenient since they had already memorized the written
language as a system of word-signs.
The reform did not force them to learn to spell again. They could still correspond using the old conventions. They did have to learn to read the more consistent spellings. The change resulted in a slight loss of reading speed for a year or so. Most reform notations are easy enough to read ... slowly.
Would you support a reform that accelerated literacy in the next generation
and saved two years of elementary school?
When I asked this question at a public lecture, 65% said they would vote for reform that benefited the next generation even is was a personal inconvenience. I took the poll after a 45 min. lecture on writing systems so these are not the results I would expect in a referendum. You have to know something about the subject before you will vote against your immediate interests.
Many people in this discussion think that reform would make matters worse. It won't make things worse for children. It may be an inconvenience for others. There were those in the audience who argued that spelling reform would not save two years of schooling or reduce taxes. Some might make the same argument here but as asked, the question bypasses this issue.
The question was stated as a conditional. If reform brought about the intended results, would you be in favor of it?
It will not make your life any easier. The benefit is for the next generation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by psikeyhackr
How could spelling bees be any fun without illogical nonsense? I hear they don't have spelling bees in Spanish.
I hope this is a joke... Do they know that billions of people would have to re-learn how to read the language ( that includes teachers who will have to teach it, and also non native speakers like me, by the way).
SB: Teachers were the main source of support for the Swedish spelling reform. They wanted a more consistent phonemic spelling system because they had to teach it and would be held accountable if they were not successful.
There are hundreds of possible reform notations and some like the one proposed here are a little inconsistent and opaque. The reform does not have to be that radical to achieve the desired results.
Most new notations for English that only augment the existing alphabet so it matches up with the 40 or so phonemes of spoken English are not that hard to read. My graduate students could pick up a reform notation in 15 minutes. Groups of adults can learn to read a phonemic notation in a classroom in 2 hours.
And the money they would have to spend to reprint books or redo websites...
What changes immediately are newspapers, periodicals, and school books. Those who want to read the old books can go on and learn the traditional spelling. These books would be reprinted when the publisher thinks there is a market.
With e-books, you can already convert them to a dozen different orthographies. Someone would figure out how to do the same with web pages. Have you used the existing translation software for web pages.
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Is Chinese too difficult to learn?
