Devising an orthogaphy for a previously oral language is a very tricky
business, with no single right solution. But it's an interesting and
valuable issue for the users of that language. With a long-established and
widespread language like English (especially one can be said to "work" well
enough as it is)* I genuinely cannot see the point.
I think it is difficult to promote the preferability of a single phonetic
orthography for a language with multiple accents.
Non-phonetically-transparent spelling is a necessary aspect of having an
international language like English. I'm sure, Tom, that you have provoked
discussions before about why it isn't a good idea to split English into
multiple phonetic spelling systems, one for each of a set of interest groups
with different accents. And that is what may happen once you alter part of
the international homogeneity in English spelling. After all, you're hardly
going to persuade most existing native English users to learn to read using
the same accent. OK, OK, it would be a bit easier to persuade those two
teach English as an additional language to do it world-wide in the same
out-of-date standard variety one step removed from native speakers.**
I just want to point out that if you want English to be
phonetically-consistently spelled, it will either have to be
phonetically-consistently spoken, or we will all have to be bi-dialectal
with a common 2nd accent, our orthographic accent. Fair enough, but what
evidence is there that this would be an improvement on the current sitation?
After all, it seems to me that this is precisely what is happening - that
speech patterns and orthography are diverging, lexical sets are splitting
and merging, foreign words are being borrowed, socially-disadvantaged
varieties exist in the oral medium with the written language as a different
code.
For what it is worth, there is no difference between cot and caught, or pool
and pull, or Pam and palm, and I would like English orthography to represent
this. When my co-speakers and I create an army that is big enough (and sort
out our parochial disagreements!!!), we will be able to force a spelling
reform on the lot of you which will be reasonably consistent and logical.
For what that would be worth.
Sorry if that seems like a rant, but it was the word "fad" that set me off.
I'd like to hear more about the what and why of this change on a scientific
empirical basis, not that it is a fad.
In equilibrium,
Jim Scobbie
*Easy to attack that point - don't bother - it's an aside.
**Exaggeration, but true that teaching of standard varieties tends to be
conservative, being outstripped by change among native speakers.
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