peter_constable@sil.org wrote:
>
> If English were written
> phonetically, with different spellings in Australia,
NZ, India,
> Singapore, Kenya, US, Canada, England, etc. (and all
that
> multiplied many times by the many different dialects
within
> those countries), the language - spoken and written -
would not
> have 1% of the current status that it has in the world
today.
Scott Horne replied:
>I was opposed to simplified orthography until you suggested
that
its introduction would drastically lower the status of English
in the world.
A minor revision along the lines Michael suggested done today
would not likely have any effect on the status of English. I
was assuming a rewriting of the past millenium of history, but
if phonetic spelling of English were suddenly forced on the
world today, it would probably have a major impact on the
status of the language, with major repercussions for
international business, research, etc. Of course, that's an
extremely hypothetical scenario that would never be remotely
tolerated and, therefore, could only happen in some Orwellian
world of WriteRight (er... RiteRite).
Peter
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:20:51 EDT