

Spelling Reform - tokenadult
http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ortho.html

======
grellas
The most radical proponent of English spelling reform was, of all people, Noah
Webster.

In 1789, he wrote "An Essay on the Necessity, Advantages, and Practicality of
Reforming the Mode of Spelling and of Rendering the Orthography of Words
Correspondent to Pronunciation" (reprinted at
[http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/DKitchen/new_655/webster_langua...](http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/DKitchen/new_655/webster_language.htm)).

The problem with all such attempts at spelling reform is that language is not
"top down" but rather "bottom up."

From ancient Saxon/Germanic words that defined much of the Old English to
Latin words that flooded in via the various Romance languages such as French
to Greek words that often came in via academic roots to scientific words that
were coined as new developments occurred, English has absorbed all manner of
word forms over many centuries - word forms that are ingrained in real-world
usages that define how people speak, think, and write, not just in learned
circles but in the street. Such words have taken on spelling characteristics
connected with their origins (e.g., words of French origin that have many
silent letters) and hence may vary significantly from one type to another.

It _is_ a desirable goal to make English spelling more consistent but, if the
very guy who came up with the leading American dictionary used for over 200
years could not even made a dent in the system, what chance does anyone else
have?

------
sunburnt
= A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling =

 _For example, in Year 1 that useless letter c would be dropped to be replased
either by k or s, and likewise x would no longer be part of the alphabet. The
only kase in which c would be retained would be the ch formation, which will
be dealt with later.

Year 2 might reform w spelling, so that which and one would take the same
konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish y replasing it with i and Iear 4
might fiks the g/j anomali wonse and for all.

Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5
doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing
vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.

Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant
letez c, y and x -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu
riplais ch, sh, and th rispektivli.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl,
kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld._

Mark Twain

Copied from <http://www.mantex.co.uk/samples/spell.htm>

------
xiaoma
_Foreign-language placenames can ignore the reform, but many places have
English names independent of the forms used by their inhabitants. <Spain,
Munich, Peking> are English words, and so get reformed («Speyn, Myunik,
Piykinh») no matter what the locals call them._

I wouldn't be caught dead calling Beijing "Peking".

~~~
tokenadult
What do you call London or Washington when you speak Chinese? That is the
quoted author's point.

~~~
xiaoma
Here in Taiwan, at least, the Chinese for London is 倫敦 and Washington is 華盛頓,
both of which are phonetic transcriptions of the way the residents of those
cities pronounce them. Unless the city has a special Chinese significance,
such as San Fransisco (舊金山), there's people attempt to keep city names in sync
with what locals call them to the extent permitted by Chinese phonetics.

Calling Beijing "Peking" or Mumbai "Bombay" may be what older people are used
to, but it's not what's on any map I've seen this century.

~~~
jimmybot
There's always time lag for this kind of thing. In English, there are even
multiple borrowings of the same French word into English with different
spellings.

This phenomenon exists in Chinese as well. How for, example, do you say UK in
Chinese ;)?

~~~
xiaoma
英聯合王國-- pretty much a direct semantic translation of United Kingdom. It's
pretty formal sounding, though.

~~~
jimmybot
Well, you're right about it being formal sounding because almost no one uses
anything but the common name, 英國. And even in your example, the Eng part of
England is still in there and not in the English. So that's my point--in
English, the trend has been to use UK, a neutral term that does not contain
anything about England or Britain, which there are groups of people that feel
very strongly against. But in Chinese, there is this linguistic lag (maybe
forever), and England is still a part of the common name for the UK.

In Taiwan, there's a (I find) humorous translation of 蔣中正 as Chiang Kai-shek.
It's as if they knew they'd be laughed at if they tried to translate the
Generalissimo's name as Fair and Upright Jiang.

Also the competing translations of Tibet as 西藏 (a Qing term that locates Tibet
as the West, or in other words, in relation to its location relative to China)
and the newer term 圖博, which is much closer to Tibetan (and the English).

Anyways, not even really disagreeing with your original point to call Peking
Beijing, but linguistic lag is actually a quite common phenomenon, and while
you notice it in this case, there are many cases where things aren't really
consistent, but you may not have noticed.

~~~
xiaoma
I see what you mean about the lag. I hadn't realized that the trend was to not
use the terms England or Britain.

The names of Chiang Kai-Shek is a complicated issue. He went by at least half
a dozen different names over his life. One of them was 蔣介石, which he started
using in Japan, I think. "Chiang Kai-Shek" is the _Cantonese_ romanization of
that. 蔣中正 was a name he adopted when he got closer to Sun Yat Sen (also a non-
mandarin romanization from a different name), who was going by 孫中山.

------
tokenadult
For a somewhat contrary view, see the webpage with poems showing the
absurdities of English spelling.

<http://www.spellingsociety.org/news/media/poems.php>

------
Dilpil
This would be the largest legacy system overhaul ever attempted. God help us
all.

