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From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Credibility
Message-ID: <380@spar.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2-Jul-85 07:25:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.380
Posted: Tue Jul  2 07:25:54 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Jul-85 04:58:40 EDT
References: <271@sri-arpa.ARPA> <483@oliveb.UUCP>
Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 48

>Jerry Aguirre:

>Please explain how changing the spelling of words will damage their
 Pliyz 0kspleyn haw cheynj1ng th0 spel1ng 0v w0rdz wil  daem0j dher
>"expressive" or "lyrical" qualities.  Also explain how the written form
 "0kspres0v"  or "lir0k0l" kwal0t1z.   Olso 0kspleyn how th0 rit0n  form
>of a language can have any "lyrical" qualities.  Remember that we are
 ov 0 laengw0j kon haev en1 lir0k0l   kwol0t1z.   R0memb0r dhaet wi ar
>talking about changing marks on a piece of paper, not the spoken words
 taok1ng 0bawt cheynj1ng marks aon 0 piys ov peyp0r, nat dh0 spowk0n wordz
>those marks represent.  Is spelling "phone" as "fone" less expressive?
 dhowz marks repr0zent.  Iz spel1ng  "fown" aez "fown" les  0kspres0v?
>If they are pronounced the same can one be less "lyrical"?
 If dhe ar  pr0nawnst  dh0 seym k1n w0n bi les  "lir0k0l"?

    When orthography degrades to the level of English's, it starts to
    resemble pictographic schemes. Note how much meaningful information is
    lost in the phonetic representations below:

	  degrade:degradation    =>	   d0greyd:degr0deysh0n
	  discrete:discretion    =>	   d0skriyt:d0skresh0n
	  phonic:phoneme:euphony =>	   fan0k:fowniym:yuwf0n1
	  induce:induction	 =>	   1nduws:1nd0ksh0n
          decide:decision	 =>	   d0sayd:d0sizh0n
	  
    Such respellings destroy the link between such words and their classical
    roots and, perhaps more importantly, with similar stems in the modern
    international word stock as well, a feature that dramatically increases
    one's reading vocabulary. 

    Our bad spelling, no doubt the worst obstacle to newcomers to English,
    would appear to aid the acquistion of written vocabulary, at the cost of
    knowledge about its pronunciation, at least for anyone who is already
    literate in some european language.
    
    And there is a complementary payoff for school children, who must spend
    at least 6-12 years in order to gain literate proficiency [almost as
    difficult as Chinese], provided their areas of interest have connections
    with international professional communities. Consequently, our spelling
    would seem to work in the interest of maintaining international
    artistic, political, economic, scientific, &c. jargon. 

    Assuming that our messy orthography can be helpful, who loses?
    Naturally, anyone who is illiterate (including professional illiterati),
    or of limited linguistic worldviews, or with purely non-european
    vocabulary. and especially the uneducated and the poor.

-michael