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English is a pictographic language with 26 radicals

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Re: English is a pictographic language with 26 radicals

#41

Post by stephen_g »

dathinab wrote: post #16
gampleman wrote: post #4

My teacher used to argue that modern English would have been better off taking the Chinese writing system rather than the Roman one. The way it works now you have all the drawbacks (i.e. you need to memorise a whole lot of pronunciation) but none of the benefit (i.e. faster reading speeds, more compact representation).

part of this comes from a fun little stupid historic coincidence 1. the writing of English was (let's call it) standardized 2. not long after (in historic terms) society decided to majorly shift/change pronunciation of a good part but not all of the language => so now part of the language fit's it's spelling, and part is shifted away from it in various degrees By re-fitting the spelling to match the pronunciation it…

Since we’re talking about language, and perhaps a bit of pedantry is more justified than it would usually be, just a heads up - neither of the apostrophes in “so now part of the language fit's it's spelling” should be there!

Re: English is a pictographic language with 26 radicals

#42

Post by yorwba »

cprecioso wrote: post #39
ajb wrote: post #25

A good description Another amusing one is Mark Twain's plan: A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain 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,…

I can't decipher what "doderez" is in the passage "bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez"

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dodderers

Re: English is a pictographic language with 26 radicals

#43

Post by [deleted] »

cprecioso wrote: post #39
ajb wrote: post #25

A good description Another amusing one is Mark Twain's plan: A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain 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,…

I can't decipher what "doderez" is in the passage "bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez"

[deleted]

Re: English is a pictographic language with 26 radicals

#44

Post by dalmo3 »

markjonsona989 wrote: post #12

(non-native here) I've been saying this for as long as I remember. Non-Anglophones often get frustrated in attempt to (de)construct a word in English like they would in other European languages only to find that it doesn't work and they don't understand why. I often say you'll have a much easier time accepting English if you consider it to be more like Mandarin; a collection of images. The only difference is that unl…

As a native Portuguese speaker, the most mindblowing aspect in English for me is how words are split in syllabes.

Why at-om and not a-tom?

As years pass I get a better intuition and can somewhat translate that to better pronunciation but I don't think I'll ever really grok it.

Re: English is a pictographic language with 26 radicals

#45

Post by DrIronstein »

ajb wrote: post #25

A good description Another amusing one is Mark Twain's plan: A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain 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,…

Reminds me of Lord Timothy Dexter's book 'Pickle for the knowing ones'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pickle_for_the_Knowing_Ones

Re: English is a pictographic language with 26 radicals

#46

Post by rahen »

andyferris wrote: post #37
bonoboTP wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the current situation because spelling reflects pronunciation as it was hundreds of years ago. Basically spoken language moved on, but orthography remained fixed. In languages that standardized their spelling later, or implemented large scale spelling reforms, the discrepancy is smaller. But English is so spread out now with no central authority, so for sake of compatibility, it won't really be reformed now.

Now GB has left the EU, maybe Europe should create an “international written English”? It’s kinda a joke, but would be kinda cool. They’d only have to negotiate with Ireland, so hopefully wouldn’t get too bogged down.

Have a look at Interlingua, it would make a great official language for the EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlingua

Same article written in Interlingua: https://ia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlingua

Re: English is a pictographic language with 26 radicals

#47

Post by kwhitefoot »

cprecioso wrote: post #39
ajb wrote: post #25

A good description Another amusing one is Mark Twain's plan: A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain 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,…

I can't decipher what "doderez" is in the passage "bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez"

Dodderers. People who dodder.

Re: English is a pictographic language with 26 radicals

#49

Post by BiteCode_dev »

beardyw wrote: post #14

There was an old lady from Slough Who developed a terrible cough. She drank half a pint Of warm honey and mint, But, sadly, she didn’t pull through. https://www.futilitycloset.com/2009/06/03/limerick-10/

Now sing it with the melody of Stairways to heaven.

Re: English is a pictographic language with 26 radicals

#50

Post by raverbashing »

rahen wrote: post #46
andyferris wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now GB has left the EU, maybe Europe should create an “international written English”? It’s kinda a joke, but would be kinda cool. They’d only have to negotiate with Ireland, so hopefully wouldn’t get too bogged down.

Have a look at Interlingua, it would make a great official language for the EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlingua Same article written in Interlingua: https://ia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlingua

Way better than Esperanto at first glance
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