Re: USAGE: Shavian: was Re: USAGE: Con-graphies

On 6/12/06, Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@...> wrote:
> Hi Ray,
>
> On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, R A Brown wrote:
> >
> > Yahya Abdal-Aziz wrote:
> > [snip]
> > > I think it a fair conclusion, from the examples of
> > > English, Greek and Latin, that any language that
> > > achieves wide usage across a number of different
> > > cultures will find its phonemes, eventually, bent so
> > > far out of shape as to be unrecognisable.
> >
> > Hardly so with Latin - the medieval & modern ecclesiastical
> > pronunciations are not so far removed from Classical.
>
> I think perhaps you missed my point, which was
> that the language itself changes so much *in
> different regions or cultures* that it splits
> into (possibly many) daughter languages.  Your
> examples of medieval ecclesiastical Latin and
> modern ecclesiastical Latin both reinforce
> instead the rôle of conservatism in stabilising
> language usage.
>
>
> > And altho
> > Byzantine & modern Greek have departed far from the ancient norms, you
> > can still tell how a Greek word will be pronounced in the modern
> > language from its spelling. You so often cannot do that in English.
>
> I stand corrected.
>
>
> > [snip]
> > > classical Arabic.  I also seem to remember an
> > > argument that the widespread use of printing has
> > > helped to fossilise and stabilise many languages.
> >
> > It has when combined with universal education. Indeed, as I showed in an
> > email a week or so back, there has in my lifetime been a distinct move
> > towards _spelling pronunciations_ in words such as 'often', 'pestle',
> > 'porpoise', 'tortoise' inter_alia.
>
> Yes, I read that.  FWIW, I've never yet heard an
> Australian, New Zealander or South African give
> a spelling pronunciation to either 'porpoise' or
> 'tortoise' - except in jest.  You know the story
> about "To all in tents and porpoises"?
>
> BTW, my wife and her family all say "fore-head";
> even her parents used to (both died at over 90),
> whereas I and my family all say "forrid", rhyming
> perfectly with "horrid" and "torrid".  And my
> English teacher looked with *abhorrence* on the
> way we all said "to-wards"; she insisted it rhymed
> with "swords", neither having any trace of a "w"
> in them.
>
> Regards,
> Yahya
>
> --
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.8.3/360 - Release Date: 9/6/06
>
>

--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>