Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site decwrl.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-jaws!pkaiser From: pkaiser@jaws.DEC (Pete Kaiser HLO2-1/N10 225-5441) Newsgroups: net.nlang Subject: Phonetic spelling isn't practical Message-ID: <4147@decwrl.UUCP> Date: Tue, 6-Nov-84 20:38:26 EST Article-I.D.: decwrl.4147 Posted: Tue Nov 6 20:38:26 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 8-Nov-84 04:07:09 EST Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP Organization: DEC Engineering Network Lines: 35 Re phonetic spelling -------------------- Any natural language exists in a matrix of extents in time, space, and culture. Within these contexts the language may change in grammar, vocabulary, customary usage, and phonetics (and undoubtedly in other respects I haven't thought of here). So any language widely-enough spread over any chronological, spatial, or cultural extent will be impossible to represent in any static form -- phonetic alphabet, dictionary, or grammar book. Any such static form will always be inadequate to describe all a language's legitimate utterances. Of course, none of that applies to proscriptive forms, but such forms are widely agreed to be, at best, of limited use -- the Academie Francaise and Webster's Second notwithstanding. Any attempt to proscribe a language by describing it authoritatively is an attempt to freeze it, without respecting that all natural languages differ from day to day, from place to place, and from one set of social circumstances to another. If you describe a language as of today, it will have changed by tomorrow, by adapting to its users' needs as of tomorrow. Or it will be the same in this place, but different in that place, and in each location the natives will consider the others the devia- tionists. Perhaps conditions are different for "small" languages (I understand that Hungarian is actually written phonetically), but it seems unlikely to me that any old, widespread, culturally diverse language like English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Portuguese or Russian can possibly be accurately described in a static form. I can imagine some advantages to non-phonetic orthography. The cognitive faculties involved in using such an orthography must be different from those using a phonetic orthography, since you must understand deep structure to be able to pronounce the non-phonetically-written word. Children (or anyone learning to read) may profit by the exercise of those faculties. ---Pete