Conversation

Notices

Embed this notice
Amikke (amikke@qoto.org)'s status on Saturday, 20-Apr-2024 00:37:12 JST Amikke

It's unfortunate that the #1 international language ended up being English. With its complete pronunciation anarchy it's impossible to tell someone over writing how to pronounce something, or in some cases even describe a sound, without digging up example words. And even that isn't foolproof since they fail at consistently pronouncing their own language and the same written word can have completely different pronunciation depending on accent.
Every single other European language I know of would be better. Yes, even French, they write 4x what they read, but at least they do it fairly consistently. No "ghoti" situations. No cases where an adult sees a written word and isn't sure how to pronounce it.
In some better timeline the US ended up speaking Spanish and a whole class of worldwide communication problems was avoided.
In conversation about a year ago from qoto.org permalink
Attachments
1. Untitled attachment
- Embed this notice
  iced depresso (icedquinn@blob.cat)'s status on Saturday, 20-Apr-2024 00:37:08 JST iced depresso
  in reply to
  
  @Amikke
  > how to pronounce something
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavian_alphabet
  
  shaw fixed that but the state embezzled the money
  In conversation about a year ago permalink
  Attachments
  1. Domain not in remote thumbnail source whitelist: upload.wikimedia.org
    
    Shavian alphabet
    
    The Shavian alphabet ( SHAY-vee-ən; also known as the Shaw alphabet) is a constructed alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonemic orthography for the English language to replace the inefficiencies and difficulties of conventional spelling using the Latin alphabet. It was posthumously funded by and named after Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Shaw set three main criteria for the new alphabet. It should be: at least 40 letters; as phonetic as possible (that is, letters should have a 1:1 correspondence to phonemes); distinct from the Latin alphabet to avoid the impression that the new spellings were simply misspellings. Letters The Shavian alphabet consists of three types of letters: tall, deep and short. Short letters are vowels, liquids (r, l) and nasals; tall letters (except Yea 𐑘 and Hung 𐑙) are voiceless consonants...
- Embed this notice
  iced depresso (icedquinn@blob.cat)'s status on Saturday, 20-Apr-2024 01:10:45 JST iced depresso
  in reply to
  - Coyote
  @Coyote @Amikke shavian failed because he left money to found a school for it and the state took the money and spent it on hookers and blow instead
  
  In conversation about a year ago permalink
- Embed this notice
  Coyote (coyote@social.singing.dog)'s status on Saturday, 20-Apr-2024 01:10:46 JST Coyote
  in reply to
  - iced depresso
  @icedquinn @Amikke Every attempt to develop a phonetic alphabet for English will ultimately fail as the oft-lamented uncoupling of sound to meaning that those alphabets try to "fix" is what allows English to be interoperable between accents, dialects, and nations. Even if you were somehow able to convince English speakers to adopt one, the situation wouldn't be much better with the various splits and mergers resulting in a handful of different spellings for every word depending on the person, place, or time of day. It's an unsolvable problem for any language of scale.
  
  In conversation about a year ago permalink

Public

Notices

Feeds