71–80 of 114 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think I pronounce the first and last a's the same (specifically, as /ə/)... it must be a dialectical difference (mine is General American English).
I think you are right.
Really, it's for the better. Languages change naturally over time and institutions like for French or Korean have little bearing on that. It's better to have style -guides- than to try and enforce usages of a language that differ from how it's actually used in real life.
Really, it's for the better. Languages change naturally over time and institutions like for French or Korean have little bearing on that. It's better to have style -guides- than to try and enforce usages of a language that differ from how it's actually used in real life.
You are confusing language and its written representation. Sure languages change, that doesn't mean its writing system shouldn't be standardized, as there is a lot of benefits (efficiency) when it's the case. There isn't much discussion about language usage anyway save for a few points.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That same exceptions may cause an increased difficulty for dyslexics. The design of a language has effects on the society that speaks it. "So, how then have we ended up with the phenomenon that some people who speak both English and another language can be dyslexic in one, but not the other? The answer, it seems, is hidden in the characteristics of a language and its writing system. “The English writing system is so…
What language is more regular? I guess maybe Korean (Hangul is phonetic, no?). All the romance languages are weird. You can't even go from pronunciation to characters in Chinese or Japanese due to Kanji. Most of the Cyrillic languages are just as bad.
Wrong, Korean writing is morpho-phonologic and has complex rules for transforming letters to actual pronunciation. And those rules applies at three different level (whatever position in the syllable, across syllable boundaries or not, or just within syllable).
Probably a good thing, considering how generally useless and obnoxious the Académie Française is. English speakers around the world have no need for a bunch of snooty, self-appointed busybodies trying to police language.
For other readers who want an example of this, look no further than how the Académie Française wants people to use the term "audio à la demande" instead of Podcast. They don't like loan words in general, and have a particular grudge against English loanwords. https://www.euronews.com/2020/05/27/france-invents-new-words...
At least that has the benefit of being somewhat short and fun to say (but not shorter than podcast and thus will not catch on)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Americans, for one, would never recognize the authority of a foreign body over their language.
But each English speaking country could form its own academy and work together, which is how Spanish speaking countries do it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Academies_of_...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pear (along with pair and pare) rhymes with bear (and bare). Peer rhymes with fear (and beer). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mfz3kFNVopk (Gallagher and English language; the pronunciation part starts at 1:50.) So and do don't even rhyme, nor do sew and dew! WTF? Then there's the words the U.K. and the U.S. don't agree on like route (in the U.K. it rhymes with root, in the U.S. usually, but not always, with out). I…
In my version of English, a router that passes packets rhymes with root, and a router that carves wood rhymes with out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are confusing language and its written representation. Sure languages change, that doesn't mean its writing system shouldn't be standardized, as there is a lot of benefits (efficiency) when it's the case. There isn't much discussion about language usage anyway save for a few points.
English spelling being standardized so early is one of the problems with it. The language has changed since the spelling was standardized (minus a few debates on the letter u).
I wonder if the Royal Society had any plans to create such an organization in the 17th century... ;)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Covid is therefore either feminine or masculine". Wifi has both genders in France and nobody died because of this. Im not a native English speaker so I need to clarify my confusion. I take it WIFI is a noun. How is gender prescribed to a noun?
English doesn't have a notion of gendered nouns. In a lot of other European languages, however, they have them. I don't know French so can't draw any examples from it, but in Italian "tavolo" (table) is masculine while "sedia" (chair) is feminine. The reason for that is, at this point in time, by definition of the language. However, when creating novel words or bringing in loanwords the choice is largely arbitrary. G…
The closest idea to gender would probably be the idea of weak/strong vowels that while no longer codified, is what results in things like see/saw, run/ran, mouse/mice. IIRC Old English had a much stronger sense of these and conjugated many of their words in this way.
An example: Mouse -> Mice is valid. Moose -> Meese is not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What language is more regular? I guess maybe Korean (Hangul is phonetic, no?). All the romance languages are weird. You can't even go from pronunciation to characters in Chinese or Japanese due to Kanji. Most of the Cyrillic languages are just as bad.
I gather that Hungarian is nigh on completely regular with respect to symbol to sound. I was told this by a Hungarian, speaking English. Hungarian does seem to have a lot of diacritics which implies to me a deliberate formalism.