

The Chaos (1922) - wfunction
http://ncf.idallen.com/english.html

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ideonexus
Isaac Asimov, Benjamin Franklin, Richard Feynman, and many many other famous
public intellectuals have argued for the simplification of English spelling.
Many frame it as an ethical issue, arguing that our complex nonsensical
spelling rules contribute to illiteracy. As the father of a three-year-old, I
can attest that our illogical and inconsistent application of phonemes puts up
uneccessary obstacles to my child's ability to read. Unfortunately, any time
the suggestion that we simplify spelling is put forth, it gets waved away
because the older generations think the new way "looks funny."

[http://mxplx.com/schema/4/](http://mxplx.com/schema/4/)

~~~
Paul_S
Learning inconsistent/inefficient languages doesn't stifle literacy - just
look at Asian languages. The problem with reform is that you'd be fine with it
except if they decided on something you didn't agree with. Multiple by
millions of speakers and any committee decision is laughed off the pages of
public discourse. I remember the case of some place name being standardised a
decade ago, and I guess they won the edit war on wikipedia but no normal
person uses that pronunciation and they are just making it more difficult to
find (although google's fuzzy matching can figure it out).

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thanatropism
Written-spoken and spoken-written are interestingly asymmetric problems. In
the first chapters of his autobiographical "The Words" Sartre tells of his
troubles learning to spell French, but reading French out loud is not
especially hard; there's more of a problem in writing underdetermination than
speech underdetermination.

Sooo the simplification of spelling movement may aim to bring these to better
symmetry (as is in Spanish, German, etc.) but it's not necessarily about this
poem's complaints.

~~~
escherplex
Given that English is a hybrid language anyway and historically has
demonstrated a willingness to accept loaner words from any source, a solution
could be to adopt the 160 symbol IPA. According to Wikipedia, seems like
everyday English could get by with around 20 vowel and 24 consonant symbols.
Regional variation spellings, for example battery: bat-er-ree (US) v. bat-tree
(UK), could be learned as synonyms. But how would you handle homophones? EG
Japanese, which is loaded with homophones, had that problem way back when they
tried to convert from Chinese hanzi logograms to an exclusively phonetic kana
writing system. They wound [homograph] up mixing the two with Chinese
ideograms setting the intended theme followed by phonetic kana to
particularize pronunciation and grammar.

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jacobolus
If anyone’s looking for a mostly idiomatic American reading, I made a
recording of a variant of this poem at some point several years ago, after a
discussion on IRC with several curious non-native English speakers who:
[https://soundcloud.com/jrus/english-
pronunciation](https://soundcloud.com/jrus/english-pronunciation)

Also see SJ Klein’s page about it:
[http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/sj/concordant-
chaos/](http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/sj/concordant-chaos/)

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timonoko
Problem is not the writing, but pronunciation. The word "battery" is the worst
in my experience. Everybody understands my pronunciation (Spain, Norway,
Singapore) except all of the english-speaking world. But Google Talk to the
rescue, it is prounonced "Bäätdrii", but I have zero clue why.

~~~
RobertoG
I feel your pain.

For me, as somebody that learned English mostly reading, to know how to spell
a word is easy but I never know if I am saying it "properly" (whatever it
means in this crazy language).

I think the opposite is true for the native speakers: they started learning to
speak and then they have to learn how to spell.

I used to joke that learning English is like learning Japanese; you have to
learn two languages, oral and written.

~~~
Keyframe
Having someone to talk to is of great help. Thing is you get to pick their
pronunciation as well, so you have to choose wisely :) For example, due to
this, I tend to say route that doesn't sound like root. There are some words
which have a tendency to sound the same when spoken and you need context
during speech to differentiate them (depends on the speaker) - for example,
flour vs flower. It's definitely a language that needs to be learned both
written and spoken, but then which isn't?

~~~
RobertoG
"It's definitely a language that needs to be learned both written and spoken,
but then which isn't?"

As mentioned in other comments, Spanish and German, for instance, are
consistent. You know exactly (mostly) how to write a word even if the first
time you heard it and you know how to say an unknown word that you see in
writing.

~~~
RodrigoT
Spanish speaker here: when you are a child you are taught "M plus A sounds
MA", no further explanation needed. Obviously we have a good bunch of
exceptions to the regularity of the language:

    
    
      * B and V sounds exactly the same.
      * ll + vowel and Y + vowel sound he same.
      * Y can work as the vowel I.
      * C, K, Q and Z share and overlap pronunciation:
        + CA, CO, CU = KA, KO, KU
        + CE, CI = ZE ZI (these later two are not valid combinations)
        + QUE, QUI = KE KI. (All other Q combinations are not valid).
      * H is always mute!, except for ch + vowel which always sounds like in chocolate.
      * G and J:
        + Strong: JA JE JI JO JU, GE, GI.
        + Soft: GA, GUE, GUI, GO, GU. This makes the sounds GU followed by "E" or "I" need a special writing: GÜE
        + Ñ: no comments.
    

Blessing and damnation: the stressed syllable is always encoded in the word.

Bonus point: the word "sal+le", imperative of go and indirect subject of the
action is the third person, can not be written as it would be said, as the two
consecutive L wold become the sound of Y.

~~~
marcosdumay
Well, Spanish certainly has some inconsistencies, but it's more consistent
than both French and Portuguese. And verbs are easier to use.

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M4er
Not related to the subject of this post itself, but did someone noticed the
double-post on HN (with short 1st page hit) and 9gag ? This is quite rare, I'm
not sure if it already happened !

