Foks Neuus kant spel.

[Duckie]

Found it

Actually, the results are much less impressive. 85% near perfect, with errors such as vowel length.

[Zac Naloen]

MRDOD : -


found this standardised spelling from that site.

I met a traveller from an anteke land hu sed: Tue vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, haff sunk, a shattered visage lies, huse frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold cummand tell that its sculptor well those passions read, which yet remain, stamped on these lifeless things-- the hand that mocked them, and the hart that fed. And on the peddestal these words are carved: 'My name is Ozzymandias, king of kings! Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' Nuthing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and levvel sands stretch far away.

Perhaps I'm just too brainwashed by my English language but some of these don't work in English English, do you know where the writer of this site is from?

How does anteke make any more sense than what I can only assume is Ancient?

Where i'm from, Command has a strong O in it. Have has a pronounced V and why I don't see the logic in adding extra letters to some words either.

That said, some of the changes I can see the logic, but the words look wrong to me.

For purely selfish and probably old colonial feelings can anyone else see different regions standardising english to their particular spelling creating what is essentially many many new languages, particularly as phonetically spelt afro-carribean english will be almost undecipherable to someone from say, the UK? Is this a good or a bad thing?

And we already have enough words that are spelt the same and with different meanings (confusing the fuck out of many a school child) thank you, we don't need more.

[RedImperator]

Spelling reform is the great white whale of English language reformers. The last person who managed to pull it off in this country was Noah Webster--he's the reason Americans spell "colour" without the "u"--and even he was only incompletely successful (he tried to change "thumb" to "thum", for example). Ever since then, every attempt has gone down in ignominious defeat, even when it has had powerful backers--Teddy Roosevelt went so far as to issue an executive order for the Federal government to use simplified spellings for about 300 words, and Congress responded by zeroing out the government printing budget unless Federal agencies used standard spellings.

[Terralthra]

MRDOD : -


found this standardised spelling from that site.

I met a traveller from an anteke land hu sed: Tue vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, haff sunk, a shattered visage lies, huse frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold cummand tell that its sculptor well those passions read, which yet remain, stamped on these lifeless things-- the hand that mocked them, and the hart that fed. And on the peddestal these words are carved: 'My name is Ozzymandias, king of kings! Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' Nuthing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and levvel sands stretch far away.

Perhaps I'm just too brainwashed by my English language but some of these don't work in English English, do you know where the writer of this site is from?

How does anteke make any more sense than what I can only assume is Ancient?

Where i'm from, Command has a strong O in it. Have has a pronounced V and why I don't see the logic in adding extra letters to some words either.

It's a transliterated passage from a famous poem. "Anteke" is "antique," and "haff" is "half." The pronunciation indicated for "command" is accurate for a good deal of the American English world as well. Ozzymandias has two Zs because the sound is present at the end of the first syllable and the beginning of the second.

That said, some of the changes I can see the logic, but the words look wrong to me.

A purely transient benefit. The words look right or wrong to you because you're used to their current spellings, no more and no less.

For purely selfish and probably old colonial feelings can anyone else see different regions standardising english to their particular spelling creating what is essentially many many new languages, particularly as phonetically spelt afro-carribean english will be almost undecipherable to someone from say, the UK? Is this a good or a bad thing?

And we already have enough words that are spelt the same and with different meanings (confusing the fuck out of many a school child) thank you, we don't need more.

So, to you, it's better that a child be confused by two words that are spelled the same because they sound the same than a child be confused by two words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently? How does that make any sense at all?

[Darth Wong]

Spelling reform is the great white whale of English language reformers. The last person who managed to pull it off in this country was Noah Webster--he's the reason Americans spell "colour" without the "u"--and even he was only incompletely successful (he tried to change "thumb" to "thum", for example). Ever since then, every attempt has gone down in ignominious defeat, even when it has had powerful backers--Teddy Roosevelt went so far as to issue an executive order for the Federal government to use simplified spellings for about 300 words, and Congress responded by zeroing out the government printing budget unless Federal agencies used standard spellings.

Spelling reform would work great if language were dictated from on high. The problem is that it exists independently of the authorities, and will do so until Orwell's vision comes true.

[Edi]

Zac, "anteke" would be a form pf phonetic spelling for "antique".

For anyone interested in learning how and why English has become the mess it has and why there is so much complexity in it, I recommed reading Melvyn Bragg's "The Adventure of English". I'm about halfway through and a lot of stuff that previously didn't make any sense is doing so right now.

Currently English has reached such a prominence in the world that a spelling reform is not going to be possible without losing that status. Besides just Americans and the Brits, everyone else is going to pitch a shitfit too.

[Edi]

Spelling reform is the great white whale of English language reformers. The last person who managed to pull it off in this country was Noah Webster--he's the reason Americans spell "colour" without the "u"--and even he was only incompletely successful (he tried to change "thumb" to "thum", for example). Ever since then, every attempt has gone down in ignominious defeat, even when it has had powerful backers--Teddy Roosevelt went so far as to issue an executive order for the Federal government to use simplified spellings for about 300 words, and Congress responded by zeroing out the government printing budget unless Federal agencies used standard spellings.

Spelling reform would work great if language were dictated from on high. The problem is that it exists independently of the authorities, and will do so until Orwell's vision comes true.

Actually, the original English spellings that came the official language were dictated from on high, but that was in a time when the laguage was just establishing itself and literacy rates were not what they are today. It is no longer possible without wrecking things. Your comment is perfectly applicable to spoken language, though.

[Duckie]

Command is possible for language- for instance, Germany has been quite successful at Spelling reform.

similarly, Icelandic (which is essentially Old Norse with a regularized grammar) fixed its spelling to be totally logical except one pronunciation rule (vowel+1 consonant is pronounced as vowel-with-umlauts but this isn't indicated anywhere while it could be).

Spanish also has one and applies changes to spelling and grammar quite regularly- however, the RAE (Real Academia Español, or something similar) also updates with the times.

For instance, about 80 years ago, the informal plural command of 'eat' was ¡Comed!, and all of the commands like that were -ed. However, now adays it has decayed in pronunciation and spelling to ¡Comer! (literally, "To Eat!") and the RAE will eventually thus update its rules. It basically has, accepting the latter (IIRC) as a variant of the former, and eventually the rule that it officially is ¡Comed! will fall away alltogether once even the grammarians start forgetting.

If english worked this way, the Royal Academy of English would, for instance, recognize Quid as a word, and change the spelling of Abominable to Abomnable.

[Duckie]

A good point as to why english can't reform spelling into a less insane form is that there is no Royal Academy of English that gets to decide what is proper grammar, syntax, spelling, etc.

[Resinence]

We can't even get Americans to spell colour or armour right, as if they would listen to a royal academy of english

And good luck trying to force an american dialect on everyone else if it's the other way around, I don't know many people who think "man I wish I had an awesome southern american accent."

[Molyneux]

MRDOD : -


found this standardised spelling from that site.

I met a traveller from an anteke land hu sed: Tue vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, haff sunk, a shattered visage lies, huse frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold cummand tell that its sculptor well those passions read, which yet remain, stamped on these lifeless things-- the hand that mocked them, and the hart that fed. And on the peddestal these words are carved: 'My name is Ozzymandias, king of kings! Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' Nuthing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and levvel sands stretch far away.

Perhaps I'm just too brainwashed by my English language but some of these don't work in English English, do you know where the writer of this site is from?

How does anteke make any more sense than what I can only assume is Ancient?

Where i'm from, Command has a strong O in it. Have has a pronounced V and why I don't see the logic in adding extra letters to some words either.

It's a transliterated passage from a famous poem. "Anteke" is "antique," and "haff" is "half." The pronunciation indicated for "command" is accurate for a good deal of the American English world as well. Ozzymandias has two Zs because the sound is present at the end of the first syllable and the beginning of the second.

...Ozymandias is a proper name. Proper names should not be fucking spelling-optimized!

"Huse" in English is significantly more confusing than "whose" - my first impulse on reading it is to pronounce it as "Hughes". And I don't see what a feeding deer has to do with any of the rest of the poem.

[Zac Naloen]

It's a transliterated passage from a famous poem. "Anteke" is "antique," and "haff" is "half." The pronunciation indicated for "command" is accurate for a good deal of the American English world as well. Ozzymandias has two Zs because the sound is present at the end of the first syllable and the beginning of the second.

Okay that make a bit more sense now, I don't know the poem and Antique didn't seem to follow in properly. With regards to Haff/Half I pronounce the L in half but people in the North of England don't, so that's a regional difference just within my own country let alone the rest of the English speaking world. But just that I was confused by that spelling shows that phoneticising spelling isn't the solution to fixing english. To me it seems that phoneticising only fixes the problem if you standardise the accent.

A purely transient benefit. The words look right or wrong to you because you're used to their current spellings, no more and no less.

I'm aware of that. Thank you.

So, to you, it's better that a child be confused by two words that are spelled the same because they sound the same than a child be confused by two words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently? How does that make any sense at all?

I don't see the huge difference, personally I think English is far too complicated to attempt to fix through phonetically changing spellings to fix the spoken language when the spoken language is so varied as it is.



Terralthra, are you suggesting english should have a version for every accent out there? If not, phoneticising it is pointless.

[Duckie]

Terralthra, are you suggesting english should have a version for every accent out there? If not, phoneticising it is pointless.

Are you kidding? Do spaniards write Nāðāŗ instead of Nadar when they go to Analusia, and þeþeo instead of Cezeo in Spain?

There can be a standard literary dialect of English written with a sensible spelling system without impinging on the ability of scotsmen to pronounce their own dialect as they see fit or making it written different, any more than a modern english courtroom scribe would write "mang" if the witness were Mexican or that impedes most people from dropping the -g in "having".

[Adrian Laguna]

It's kind of amusing to read about spelling reform because I, as a native of a Spanish speaking country, often do pronounce the letters that people suggest dropping. It makes me see why exactly to people mean when they say I have an accent, I pronounce everything ever so slightly wrong because I mostly learn by reading, and I wind up saying letters I've read that nobody else does. Of course, sometimes I also pronounce imaginary letters that only I see, but that's another issue.

[Zac Naloen]

Terralthra, are you suggesting english should have a version for every accent out there? If not, phoneticising it is pointless.

Are you kidding? Do spaniards write Nāðāŗ instead of Nadar when they go to Analusia, and þeþeo instead of Cezeo in Spain?

There can be a standard literary dialect of English written with a sensible spelling system without impinging on the ability of scotsmen to pronounce their own dialect as they see fit or making it written different, any more than a modern english courtroom scribe would write "mang" if the witness were Mexican or that impedes most people from dropping the -g in "having".

I'm asking how far people who advocate phoneticising English want to go.

I'm not against standardisation or simplification/modernisation of our grammar rules, but those need to be worked out in full and reviewed first. But "phonetic" spelling sounds like a huge can of worms when it comes down to arguing which accent should be the base. I guess it needs to be something decided upon by the UN otherwise the closest thing we have to an international language won't quite be so international any more.

[Terralthra]

...Ozymandias is a proper name. Proper names should not be fucking spelling-optimized!

He says, of a name that's translated from another alphabet to begin with. Are you one of those "if English was good enough for Jesus" people too?

"Huse" in English is significantly more confusing than "whose" - my first impulse on reading it is to pronounce it as "Hughes". And I don't see what a feeding deer has to do with any of the rest of the poem.

It's only confusing because you're applying the current (broken) set of implicit pronunciation guidelines, and saying "wah wah, hart doesn't mean heart, I don't get it," is unconvincing, when we are discussing changing the phonetic scheme to begin with.

I'm asking how far people who advocate phoneticising English want to go.

I'm not against standardisation or simplification/modernisation of our grammar rules, but those need to be worked out in full and reviewed first. But "phonetic" spelling sounds like a huge can of worms when it comes down to arguing which accent should be the base. I guess it needs to be something decided upon by the UN otherwise the closest thing we have to an international language won't quite be so international any more.

It's not necessary (though it might be helpful) to collapse the phonetic scheme to a single set. That's a black/white fallacy. English already has a standardized spelling system, which accents already work around. My proposal would rest with simply simplifying and making consistent that existing standard. The accent issue is tangential at best.

For example, very very very few people have any noticeable pronunciation difference in the way they pronounce the vowel cluster (r-colored unrounded tense front vowel) of the following words:

peer
mere
weird
clear
pier

So, when you hear a word, which you don't know the spelling of, with that r-colored vowel, you have at least five different ways you could represent that exact same sound. The same goes in reverse, as well: most vowel representations can stand for at least 2-3 different sounds. There's no need to mash it all down to a single prosodic and phonetic system, but it could certainly be less complex than it is.

[Zac Naloen]

I agree it can be less complex, like you I'm not convinced doing it phonetically is the solution . Remove redundancy yes. But change Half to Haff? etc. I can't see the point, particularly when I pronounce that L

[Adrian Laguna]

I think one of the funny things about English is that it has three vowel sounds that are actually diphthongs. In other words, there are three vowels that actually represent two vowel sounds each. They are the names of the letters "a", "i", and "u", which can be rendered, "ei", "ai", and "iu".

[Graeme Dice]

It's only confusing because you're applying the current (broken) set of implicit pronunciation guidelines, and saying "wah wah, hart doesn't mean heart, I don't get it," is unconvincing, when we are discussing changing the phonetic scheme to begin with.

It is only possible to match spelling with the phonetics of a language if everybody who speaks that language has the same accent. Since that's a laughable assertion when dealing with English, there's no point in a discussion of how the phonetic scheme might change. Any attempt you might make to "fix" the spelling of a word to match how it sounds is not going to match at least a half dozen different accents, and is thus pointless.

[starslayer]

It is only possible to match spelling with the phonetics of a language if everybody who speaks that language has the same accent. Since that's a laughable assertion when dealing with English, there's no point in a discussion of how the phonetic scheme might change. Any attempt you might make to "fix" the spelling of a word to match how it sounds is not going to match at least a half dozen different accents, and is thus pointless.

Not true. In German, the Berliners say "ch" as English "k", the Southerners and Austrians say it as English "sh" or German "sch", and elsewhere it is spoken as the famous guttural sound most people think of when they think German. Remember, as I pointed out earlier, for a given accent, a given phoneme tends to be pronounced consistently across the lexicon.

[starslayer]

Ghetto edit: And German has standardized phonetic spelling.

[Zac Naloen]

It is only possible to match spelling with the phonetics of a language if everybody who speaks that language has the same accent. Since that's a laughable assertion when dealing with English, there's no point in a discussion of how the phonetic scheme might change. Any attempt you might make to "fix" the spelling of a word to match how it sounds is not going to match at least a half dozen different accents, and is thus pointless.

Not true. In German, the Berliners say "ch" as English "k", the Southerners and Austrians say it as English "sh" or German "sch", and elsewhere it is spoken as the famous guttural sound most people think of when they think German. Remember, as I pointed out earlier, for a given accent, a given phoneme tends to be pronounced consistently across the lexicon.

Is the same true of English?

[CaptainZoidberg]

Spelling reform would work great if language were dictated from on high. The problem is that it exists independently of the authorities, and will do so until Orwell's vision comes true.

If you could mandate all of the public schools to use a certain spelling, and convince major publishers to do it, then over a long period of time the usage would probably become standard.

Consider the change from A.D. to C.E. for time. It's not like it's mandated from above whether a historian or person chooses to use AD or CE, but the school system started teaching CE (common era), and it became habit for every student taking a history class.

If every student is taught to use it, and it becomes natural, then it enters the mainstream. I see no reason why we couldn't do it for changed spellings.

[Winston Blake]

Not true. In German, the Berliners say "ch" as English "k", the Southerners and Austrians say it as English "sh" or German "sch", and elsewhere it is spoken as the famous guttural sound most people think of when they think German. Remember, as I pointed out earlier, for a given accent, a given phoneme tends to be pronounced consistently across the lexicon.

Is the same true of English?

Mostly, but with many clear exceptions, as the article points out:

Who cares about dialects?

Ideally you shouldn't have to worry about my dialect at all: you could simply take (say) ê to represent whatever you pronounce as the vowel in met. Unfortunately, English dialects are not uniform enough to share a single phonology. There are many words that are not only pronounced differently in different dialects-- that is, they have a distinct phonetic realization-- but also have their own phonemic representation.

Some examples:

* GA is rhotic-- we pronounce the post-vocalic r's-- while other important dialects are not, notably the British standard, RP.
* I distinguish cot and caught, Don and Dawn; these vowels (ô, ò) merge in the US West.
* On the other hand, I merge the vowel sounds in Mary, merry, and marry, which are distinguished in Eastern US dialects and in RP.
* I pronounce w and wh the same.

'Half' as 'haff' is another example, which I pronounce 'harf'. 'Harf', again, would be pronounced differently in 'General American' than in Australian English. However, the main point of the article stands - its examples demonstrate the 'systematicity' of English.

Standardising phonology would change some pronunciations, but not to the point of having everyone speak in a Southern American drawl. Hell, in Australia, the pronunciations of words like branch, chance and dance are a matter of preference. Whether it's the English or American way, both sound 'Australian'.

[Zac Naloen]

Just saw this : -

If english worked this way, the Royal Academy of English would, for instance, recognize Quid as a word, and change the spelling of Abominable to Abomnable.

They better bloody not!

Am I the only person on here who speaks English as it's supposed to be spoken?