For a Better Spelling

[Tristan L]

This thread has been spawned by a discussion I sparked in my thread on system entropy being relative by my use of the English letters Þorn (big: ‘Þ’, small: ‘þ’), which stands for the voiceless dental fricative, and Ðat (uppercase: ‘Ð’, lowercase: ‘ð’), which represents the voiced dental fricative. I meant to talk about physics there, not speech, so I’ve taken the linguistic discussion thence hither. You made some intrysting points in that other thread, so I'll respond to them here.

 

Markus Hanke wrote:

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On 12/22/2023 at 11:15 AM, Tristan L said:

Ðis makes it six times as good (i.e. five times better).

I disagree. While I know that Icelandic distinguishes these sounds in phonology and orthography, English effectively doesn’t, so there’s no point in this at all.

 

Firstly, English phonology does distinguish between /þ/ and /ð/. Or would it be okay to say: "I ðank you for ðinking about þe question of wheþer to put ðorns of þat fence."?

Secondly, even if English didn't distinguish between /ð/ and /þ/, it definitely does distinguish between these two sounds on one hand and /t/ followed by /h/ on the other. Not using 'th' for /þ/ or /ð/ makes it clear that "meathook", for instance, is spoken out like "meet-huk" rather than "me-ðuk" or "me-þuk".

Thirdly, even if English didn't distinguish between /ð/ and /þ/ and the 't'-'h' issue weren't a problem, using a single letter for a sound is still more logical and efficient than using a two-letter combination. For example, replacing all instances of "th" which represent /þ/ or /ð/ by "þ" would still be more efficient.

 

Genady wrote:

Quote

This is not English. See English alphabet - Wikipedia.

That Wikipedia article says the opposite; it lists Þorn and Ðat as English letters. It also says these letters, along with several others, have fallen out of use, and this is precisely what I'm trying to turn back; not because they're old, but because using them is logical. In many ways, such as the case system and the letter system, older versions of English are better than the currently widespread one, so I'd like to bring the old features back. For instance, saying "Thou seest me", "I see thee", "Ye see me", and "I see you" is more precise than saying "You see me" and "I see you" for all of them. I often find it bothersome when I don't know whether someone uses "you" to refer to a single person or a group, so bringing back "thou" and company would definitely be useful. However, in other respects, older versions of English aren't as good as Modern English, and in these cases, I stick to the modern features. For example, Old English didn't have perfect tenses AFAIK (correct me if I be wrong) and so was less expressive in this respect. I want a speech to be as precise and expressive as possible. After these two criteria, I want it to be efficient and beautiful. These four criteria are what count for me, not age. It just so happens that old languages often score higher on them than modern ones do.

For instance, Old English had different suffixes for different kinds of doers: "-el" mostly foor tools, "-þor" for tools and machines, and "-a" for people doing certain things, often if it's their job or habit. In Modern English, "-er" is used for everything, and the others are hardly or no longer productive or don't even exist anymore. Does "computer" mean a machine which computes, or a person who does? We have to learn by heart that it's the former. And does "driver" mean a device which drives, or a person who does? We have to learn by heart the latter. If we used "reckonþor" and "driva" instead, the meanings would be clear. Bryan A. J. Parry has written an article about "-el". (This is another matter, but I have to talk about it since I've brought Anglish up: I'm not for language purism, as I think it hinders progress. I'm for speech freedom and seek to shield native inborn words from being displaced by foreign ones, which often happens due to political, cultural or other forms of imperialism. I'm strongly against imperialism, be it political, cultural, or linguistic.)

Another English suffix which is no longer productive is "-ol", which, unlike "-ing", means specifically leaning towards doing a certain action, not just doing it. Someone who is thinkol doesn't have to be thinking right now, but rather is wont to think a lot. Speaking of "-ing" ... this suffix is used both for forming the gerund, a nameword meaning the deed itself, and the present participle, a how-word or nominalized how-word describing something which does the deed. This vexes me a lot in philosophy, where I often don't know whether someone is using "being" to mean that which is, or the deed or state to be. It would be better to keep "-ing" for the gerund alone and wield "-ende" (or "-onde") for the present participle. We'd then say "Every living beonde has being" instead of "Every living being has being". Also, does "I like helping animals" mean that I like to help animals, or that I like animals who help? Wielding "I like helping animals" for the former and "I like helpende animals" for the latter would clear up the confusion. Other speeches, such as Arabic and German, don't suffer from this problem; for instance, "كَائِن" and "seiend" (adjective) and "Seiendes" (adjective made into noun) refer to that which is whereas "كَوْن" and "Sein" mean to be. But sadly, Arabic and German are deteriorating, too.

Technology and culture have become more sophisticated, so why do we seem to see the opposite trend in speeches, ranging from Indo-European ones to Arabic?

 

Genady wrote:

Quote

Plus, the topic of an alphabet is not Physics.

Right, and I didn't want to talk about it in the physics thread. I wanted to write about entropy, not language, but I used the letters Thorn and That in doing so, which sparked this discussion.

 

studiot wrote:

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English is descended from AngloSaxon not Old Norse.

Of course. In fact, English and German are West Germanic, while Old Norse is North Germanic.

 

Quote

When she was at Londondon university all students of English were required to be competent in Old English.

That was good 👍. Is it still the case today? If not, it should be again.

 

studiot wrote:

Quote

The interesting thing is that I could not find your letters in Sweet, although there is some similarity.

Maybe because letters and language are two different things. You can write Old English with the letters of the currently widespread English alphabet, just as you can write Modern English in runes or Arabic in Latin (+ Þorn and Ðat) letters and Arabic numerals: "Haaðihi jumlaton 3arabiyyaton maktuubaton bi-7uruufin laatiiniyya4." ("هَٰذِهِ جُمْلَةٌ عَرَبِيَّةٌ مَكْتُوبَةٌ بِحُرُوفٍ لَاتِينِيَّةٍ.") Likewise, some sites teaching Gothic use the Latin instead of the Gothic alphabet.

 

studiot wrote:

Quote

Modern English please

As said, language and letters are separate matters. The speech I'm using the whole time is Modern English, sadly with all its shortcomings. It's just that I used letters currently not widely in use, which can be a little cumbersome while getting used to them, I admit.

 

joigus wrote:

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I hope you also notice that English doesn't identify a particular sequence of letters with a sound.

Of course. For instance, is "Wimshurt Machine" spoken out like "wim-shurst ma-sheen", or like "wims-hurst ma-sheen"?

 

joigus wrote:

Quote

On 12/22/2023 at 11:15 AM, Tristan L said:

but raðer wið regard to

(my emphasis)

the "th" sound in "rather" is very different from "th" sound in "with."

Since when? The "th" in "rather" and the "th" in "with" are both pronounced exactly like the "th" in "the": as the voiced dental fricative. So "with the shovel" is pronounced with a long /ð/.

 

exchemist wrote:

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I'm intrigued to see that the "thorn", present in Old English, is something used in Icelandic. The other characters I don't recognise.

The only other currently non-standard character I used is Ðat ('Ð'/'ð'), which is also used in Icelandish.

 

Markus Hanke wrote:

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There are good reasons why English orthography is largely standardised, so deviating from this is unwise, really comes across as silly, and makes it hard for some to read your text. Trust me, this isn’t making a good impression.

My advice to you, if you wish to engage in a proper discussion of your ideas and be taken seriously while doing so, is to stick to standard English orthography. You don’t have to agree with it, you just need to use it.

Of course English spelling should be standardized to make communication easy. However, I believe the current standard should be replaced by a better one. We should get away from using letter strings, such as "th" for /þ/ and /ð/ and "sh" for /ʃ/, as this is 1. inefficient and 2. can lead to confusion, like with "Wimshurst Machine". Also, clearly different sounds, like /ð/ and /þ/, should be represented with different letters. In particular, I suggest that:
F. That ('Ð'/'ð') be wielded for /ð/, as in "ðere" instead of "there",
U. Thorn ('Þ'/'þ') be used for /þ/, as in "þeory" instead of "theory",
Þ. Eng ('Ŋ'/'ŋ') be used for /ŋ/, as in "Mt. Ŋauruhoe" instead of "Mt. Ngauruhoe" and "siŋer" rather than "singer", which would also allow distinguising /ŋ/, as in "singer"/"siŋer", from /ŋg/, as in "finger"/"fiŋger",
A. Esh ('Ʃ'/'ʃ') be wielded for /ʃ/, as in "Ʃark" rather than "Shark" and "fiʃ" instead of "fish",
R. Hwair ('Ƕ'/'ƕ') or at least "Hw" and "hw" be used for /h^w/, as in "ƕine" or "hwine" rather than "whine", which is not to be mixed up with "wine",
K. and the glottal click, /ʔ/, be written with the glottal click letter, 'Ɂ'/'ɂ', as in "ɂan ɂapp" and "ɂa nap" rather than "an app" and "a nap".

Spelling, and language broadly, isn't governed by natural laws. We choose how we speak, and each of us can contribute to steering the evolution of speech. I have given good reasons, I believe, for the changes I hope to see in the future. And every change must start somewhere, so I chose to begin by using Ðat and Þorn. I'm open to others' suggestions to make our speech better. For instance, in his video The Iodine Myth, NileRed points out that
1. a liquid turning gaseous below the boiling point,
2. a liquid becoming a gas at the boiling point,
3. a solid becoming a gas below the boiling point, and
4. a solid turing gaseous at the boiling point
are four different processes but that we have only three different names for them: "boiling", which means only (2.), sublimation, which is sometimes used for (4.) alone but othertimes for both (3.) and (4.), and "evaporation", which some wield to mean only (1.) and others to refer to (1.) and (3.). He proposes "sublimation" be wielded for only (4.) and "evaporation" for (1.) alone and came up with a new word, "nilation", for (3.). He rightly says that "if we all started to use a new term, whether it's "Nilation" or something else, we could probably eventually change things". Since I agree with his arguments, I've adopted his term "nilation".

I believe we shouldn't just accept shortcomings of the language we speak. Instead, we should change the speech for the better, especially in expressiveness (which we can also call "outþrutcholness"), precision, beauty, and efficiency. That isn't silly. However, it's true that changing the language takes a bit of effort, as some of you have implied:

Markus Hanke:

Quote

My advice to you, if you wish to engage in a proper discussion of your ideas and be taken seriously while doing so, is to stick to standard English orthography. You don’t have to agree with it, you just need to use it.

exchemist:

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However I must agree with Markus that if you are interesting in discussing science, as opposed to striking an affected linguistic pose, you are better off sticking to the English alphabet. I've just tried to read your post and gave up in annoyance after only a paragraph.

studiot:

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Modern English please, because it may be that you have something interesting and worthwhile to discuss.

[...]
I think that is more than enough to lay onto other members, without adding alphabetic ones as well.

That's why I've gone back to wielding "th" for now. In fact, when I first wrote in currently non-standard letters, I found both writing and reading my own texts a bit hard. However, I was surprised by how quickly I got used to it. Now, I can easily read and write a sentence which contains all the letters I mentioned in (F.) to (K.) above in addition to the 26 letters of the currently standard English alphabet: "Ƕat streŋgþ ðat ʃrewd brown fox has to jump quickly ɂover ðe lazy dog!" I've written many comments of science videos on YouTube using That and Thorn and was surprised by how little those who answered me seemed to pay attention to may as-of-yet non-standard use. All those whom I currently remember to have commented on my use of Thorn and That liked it. So it seems one can get used to better spelling quickly.

 

There's another issue, which Markus Hanke pointed out:

Quote

Furthermore the vast majority of people here on this forum presumably will use English keyboards, so these letters are not straightforwardly accessible to them, making this not at all efficient to most of us.

That's indeed true of current English keyboards. I hope future English keyboards will have the extra letters I've mentioned, in particular Thorn and That. Moreover, you can easily switch to the Icelandic keyboard to get That and Thorn. If you type with an Android phone, you can keep the English keyboard and get Thorn by pushing and holding the T key, That by pressing and holding the D key, and Eng by pushing and holding the N key. If you write in Microsoft Word, where I write many of my posts before pasting them hither, you can keep the English keyboard and use codes to enter any Unicode token: Write the Unicode point of the desired token ("de" for 'Þ', "fe" for 'þ', "d0" for 'Ð' and "ð" for 'ð'), then push and hold the ALT key and press the X key. This turns the hex code into the corresponding Unicode character. If an Arabic numeral or a capital or small letter from 'A' to 'F' comes immediately before, you have to either have selected the hex code or put a space before it when pushing ALT+X. It might sound complicated, but when you've gotten used to it, as I have, you can write very long texts very quickly with any Unicode characters you want. I've memorized over a dozen hex codes.

 

Anyway, considering that you still find wielding That and Thorn cumbersome and that I'd like to read your opinions about Hossenfelder's and my take on entropy, I'll continue my discussion without using these two beautiful letters for now, though I may slip a tiny That or Thorn in here and there, so be careful to not be pricked by one of the latter 😉.

[swansont]

3 hours ago, Tristan L said:

That Wikipedia article says the opposite; it lists Þorn and Ðat as English letters

It says no such thing

“the current letters:

A a B b C c D d E e F f G g H h I i J j K k L l M m N n O o P p Q q R r S s T t U u V v W w X x Y y Z z”

 

The letters you mention are listed under “archaic letters” i.e. letters no longer in use. 

Quote

I chose to begin by using Ðat and Þorn

And you were asked not to do that, but you not only chose to persist, you also are insisting on things that aren’t true

[exchemist]

2 hours ago, Tristan L said:

This thread has been spawned by a discussion I sparked in my thread on system entropy being relative by my use of the English letters Þorn (big: ‘Þ’, small: ‘þ’), which stands for the voiceless dental fricative, and Ðat (uppercase: ‘Ð’, lowercase: ‘ð’), which represents the voiced dental fricative. I meant to talk about physics there, not speech, so I’ve taken the linguistic discussion thence hither. You made some intrysting points in that other thread, so I'll respond to them here.

 

Markus Hanke wrote:

Firstly, English phonology does distinguish between /þ/ and /ð/. Or would it be okay to say: "I ðank you for ðinking about þe question of wheþer to put ðorns of þat fence."?

Secondly, even if English didn't distinguish between /ð/ and /þ/, it definitely does distinguish between these two sounds on one hand and /t/ followed by /h/ on the other. Not using 'th' for /þ/ or /ð/ makes it clear that "meathook", for instance, is spoken out like "meet-huk" rather than "me-ðuk" or "me-þuk".

Thirdly, even if English didn't distinguish between /ð/ and /þ/ and the 't'-'h' issue weren't a problem, using a single letter for a sound is still more logical and efficient than using a two-letter combination. For example, replacing all instances of "th" which represent /þ/ or /ð/ by "þ" would still be more efficient.

 

Genady wrote:

That Wikipedia article says the opposite; it lists Þorn and Ðat as English letters. It also says these letters, along with several others, have fallen out of use, and this is precisely what I'm trying to turn back; not because they're old, but because using them is logical. In many ways, such as the case system and the letter system, older versions of English are better than the currently widespread one, so I'd like to bring the old features back. For instance, saying "Thou seest me", "I see thee", "Ye see me", and "I see you" is more precise than saying "You see me" and "I see you" for all of them. I often find it bothersome when I don't know whether someone uses "you" to refer to a single person or a group, so bringing back "thou" and company would definitely be useful. However, in other respects, older versions of English aren't as good as Modern English, and in these cases, I stick to the modern features. For example, Old English didn't have perfect tenses AFAIK (correct me if I be wrong) and so was less expressive in this respect. I want a speech to be as precise and expressive as possible. After these two criteria, I want it to be efficient and beautiful. These four criteria are what count for me, not age. It just so happens that old languages often score higher on them than modern ones do.

For instance, Old English had different suffixes for different kinds of doers: "-el" mostly foor tools, "-þor" for tools and machines, and "-a" for people doing certain things, often if it's their job or habit. In Modern English, "-er" is used for everything, and the others are hardly or no longer productive or don't even exist anymore. Does "computer" mean a machine which computes, or a person who does? We have to learn by heart that it's the former. And does "driver" mean a device which drives, or a person who does? We have to learn by heart the latter. If we used "reckonþor" and "driva" instead, the meanings would be clear. Bryan A. J. Parry has written an article about "-el". (This is another matter, but I have to talk about it since I've brought Anglish up: I'm not for language purism, as I think it hinders progress. I'm for speech freedom and seek to shield native inborn words from being displaced by foreign ones, which often happens due to political, cultural or other forms of imperialism. I'm strongly against imperialism, be it political, cultural, or linguistic.)

Another English suffix which is no longer productive is "-ol", which, unlike "-ing", means specifically leaning towards doing a certain action, not just doing it. Someone who is thinkol doesn't have to be thinking right now, but rather is wont to think a lot. Speaking of "-ing" ... this suffix is used both for forming the gerund, a nameword meaning the deed itself, and the present participle, a how-word or nominalized how-word describing something which does the deed. This vexes me a lot in philosophy, where I often don't know whether someone is using "being" to mean that which is, or the deed or state to be. It would be better to keep "-ing" for the gerund alone and wield "-ende" (or "-onde") for the present participle. We'd then say "Every living beonde has being" instead of "Every living being has being". Also, does "I like helping animals" mean that I like to help animals, or that I like animals who help? Wielding "I like helping animals" for the former and "I like helpende animals" for the latter would clear up the confusion. Other speeches, such as Arabic and German, don't suffer from this problem; for instance, "كَائِن" and "seiend" (adjective) and "Seiendes" (adjective made into noun) refer to that which is whereas "كَوْن" and "Sein" mean to be. But sadly, Arabic and German are deteriorating, too.

Technology and culture have become more sophisticated, so why do we seem to see the opposite trend in speeches, ranging from Indo-European ones to Arabic?

 

Genady wrote:

Right, and I didn't want to talk about it in the physics thread. I wanted to write about entropy, not language, but I used the letters Thorn and That in doing so, which sparked this discussion.

 

studiot wrote:

Of course. In fact, English and German are West Germanic, while Old Norse is North Germanic.

 

That was good 👍. Is it still the case today? If not, it should be again.

 

studiot wrote:

Maybe because letters and language are two different things. You can write Old English with the letters of the currently widespread English alphabet, just as you can write Modern English in runes or Arabic in Latin (+ Þorn and Ðat) letters and Arabic numerals: "Haaðihi jumlaton 3arabiyyaton maktuubaton bi-7uruufin laatiiniyya4." ("هَٰذِهِ جُمْلَةٌ عَرَبِيَّةٌ مَكْتُوبَةٌ بِحُرُوفٍ لَاتِينِيَّةٍ.") Likewise, some sites teaching Gothic use the Latin instead of the Gothic alphabet.

 

studiot wrote:

As said, language and letters are separate matters. The speech I'm using the whole time is Modern English, sadly with all its shortcomings. It's just that I used letters currently not widely in use, which can be a little cumbersome while getting used to them, I admit.

 

joigus wrote:

Of course. For instance, is "Wimshurt Machine" spoken out like "wim-shurst ma-sheen", or like "wims-hurst ma-sheen"?

 

joigus wrote:

Since when? The "th" in "rather" and the "th" in "with" are both pronounced exactly like the "th" in "the": as the voiced dental fricative. So "with the shovel" is pronounced with a long /ð/.

 

exchemist wrote:

The only other currently non-standard character I used is Ðat ('Ð'/'ð'), which is also used in Icelandish.

 

Markus Hanke wrote:

Of course English spelling should be standardized to make communication easy. However, I believe the current standard should be replaced by a better one. We should get away from using letter strings, such as "th" for /þ/ and /ð/ and "sh" for /ʃ/, as this is 1. inefficient and 2. can lead to confusion, like with "Wimshurst Machine". Also, clearly different sounds, like /ð/ and /þ/, should be represented with different letters. In particular, I suggest that:
F. That ('Ð'/'ð') be wielded for /ð/, as in "ðere" instead of "there",
U. Thorn ('Þ'/'þ') be used for /þ/, as in "þeory" instead of "theory",
Þ. Eng ('Ŋ'/'ŋ') be used for /ŋ/, as in "Mt. Ŋauruhoe" instead of "Mt. Ngauruhoe" and "siŋer" rather than "singer", which would also allow distinguising /ŋ/, as in "singer"/"siŋer", from /ŋg/, as in "finger"/"fiŋger",
A. Esh ('Ʃ'/'ʃ') be wielded for /ʃ/, as in "Ʃark" rather than "Shark" and "fiʃ" instead of "fish",
R. Hwair ('Ƕ'/'ƕ') or at least "Hw" and "hw" be used for /h^w/, as in "ƕine" or "hwine" rather than "whine", which is not to be mixed up with "wine",
K. and the glottal click, /ʔ/, be written with the glottal click letter, 'Ɂ'/'ɂ', as in "ɂan ɂapp" and "ɂa nap" rather than "an app" and "a nap".

Spelling, and language broadly, isn't governed by natural laws. We choose how we speak, and each of us can contribute to steering the evolution of speech. I have given good reasons, I believe, for the changes I hope to see in the future. And every change must start somewhere, so I chose to begin by using Ðat and Þorn. I'm open to others' suggestions to make our speech better. For instance, in his video The Iodine Myth, NileRed points out that
1. a liquid turning gaseous below the boiling point,
2. a liquid becoming a gas at the boiling point,
3. a solid becoming a gas below the boiling point, and
4. a solid turing gaseous at the boiling point
are four different processes but that we have only three different names for them: "boiling", which means only (2.), sublimation, which is sometimes used for (4.) alone but othertimes for both (3.) and (4.), and "evaporation", which some wield to mean only (1.) and others to refer to (1.) and (3.). He proposes "sublimation" be wielded for only (4.) and "evaporation" for (1.) alone and came up with a new word, "nilation", for (3.). He rightly says that "if we all started to use a new term, whether it's "Nilation" or something else, we could probably eventually change things". Since I agree with his arguments, I've adopted his term "nilation".

I believe we shouldn't just accept shortcomings of the language we speak. Instead, we should change the speech for the better, especially in expressiveness (which we can also call "outþrutcholness"), precision, beauty, and efficiency. That isn't silly. However, it's true that changing the language takes a bit of effort, as some of you have implied:

Markus Hanke:

exchemist:

studiot:

That's why I've gone back to wielding "th" for now. In fact, when I first wrote in currently non-standard letters, I found both writing and reading my own texts a bit hard. However, I was surprised by how quickly I got used to it. Now, I can easily read and write a sentence which contains all the letters I mentioned in (F.) to (K.) above in addition to the 26 letters of the currently standard English alphabet: "Ƕat streŋgþ ðat ʃrewd brown fox has to jump quickly ɂover ðe lazy dog!" I've written many comments of science videos on YouTube using That and Thorn and was surprised by how little those who answered me seemed to pay attention to may as-of-yet non-standard use. All those whom I currently remember to have commented on my use of Thorn and That liked it. So it seems one can get used to better spelling quickly.

 

There's another issue, which Markus Hanke pointed out:

That's indeed true of current English keyboards. I hope future English keyboards will have the extra letters I've mentioned, in particular Thorn and That. Moreover, you can easily switch to the Icelandic keyboard to get That and Thorn. If you type with an Android phone, you can keep the English keyboard and get Thorn by pushing and holding the T key, That by pressing and holding the D key, and Eng by pushing and holding the N key. If you write in Microsoft Word, where I write many of my posts before pasting them hither, you can keep the English keyboard and use codes to enter any Unicode token: Write the Unicode point of the desired token ("de" for 'Þ', "fe" for 'þ', "d0" for 'Ð' and "ð" for 'ð'), then push and hold the ALT key and press the X key. This turns the hex code into the corresponding Unicode character. If an Arabic numeral or a capital or small letter from 'A' to 'F' comes immediately before, you have to either have selected the hex code or put a space before it when pushing ALT+X. It might sound complicated, but when you've gotten used to it, as I have, you can write very long texts very quickly with any Unicode characters you want. I've memorized over a dozen hex codes.

 

Anyway, considering that you still find wielding That and Thorn cumbersome and that I'd like to read your opinions about Hossenfelder's and my take on entropy, I'll continue my discussion without using these two beautiful letters for now, though I may slip a tiny That or Thorn in here and there, so be careful to not be pricked by one of the latter 😉.

Item 4 has no physical meaning. A solid cannot boil. Boiling is the development of bubbles in a liquid when the vapour pressure equals the pressure above the liquid. So you only need words for items 1-3, which we have.

Edited December 23, 2023 by exchemist

[Tyrannosaurus rex]

3 hours ago, exchemist said:

Item 4 has no physical meaning. A solid cannot boil. Boiling is the development of bubbles in a liquid when the vapour pressure equals the pressure above the liquid. So you only need words for items 1-3, which we have.

It's true that a solid can't boil. However, by "boiling point of stuff St at pressure P", I mean the lowest temperature at which St can be a gas under the pressure P. With this definition of "boiling point", item (4.) is not only meaningful, but often happens. It's called "sublimation", and it's what happens when a solid becomes a gas at the solid/gas boundary on the phase diagram below the triple point. Likewise, "boiling" refers to a liquid becoming a gas at the liquid/gas boundary in the phase diagram, which is equivalent to your definition. "Evaporation" refers to a liquid turning gaseous within the liquid region of the phase diagram. And what do you call a solid becoming a gas in the solid region of the phase diagram?

 

4 hours ago, swansont said:

And you were asked not to do that, but you not only chose to persist

Because I had been given no convincing justification. By now, oðers have given me such justifications, so I temporarily keep my use of Þorn and Ðat on these forums down.

 

4 hours ago, swansont said:

you also are insisting on things that aren’t true

That statement is the one which is untrue.

 

4 hours ago, swansont said:

The letters you mention are listed under “archaic letters” i.e. letters no longer in use.

Indeed, but that doesn't make them not English. Examples of letters which aren't English are Arabic 7aaɂ ('ح'), Greek Þeta ('Θ'/'θ'), and German 'Ö'/'ö'.

 

4 hours ago, swansont said:

It says no such thing

“the current letters:

A a B b C c D d E e F f G g H h I i J j K k L l M m N n O o P p Q q R r S s T t U u V v W w X x Y y Z z”

It says that those are the current letters. But it does very much list That and Thorn as English letters, albeit archaic ones. In science, one has to be precise 🙂.

[swansont]

38 minutes ago, Tyrannosaurus rex said:

Because I had been given no convincing justification. By now, oðers have given me such justifications, so I temporarily keep my use of Þorn and Ðat on these forums down.

!

Moderator Note

You agreed to follow the rules of the forum when you joined, so a post from a moderator should not require any justification; it’s not for you to decide such things.

One of the rules of the forum is that opening up an account to evade a ban is not permitted.

 

 

Quote

It says that those are the current letters. But it does very much list That and Thorn as English letters, albeit archaic ones. In science, one has to be precise 🙂.

Yes. You were not precise in identifying these letters as archaic.

Are you really claiming that the context of current vs archaic was not understood? I said the language of science was English. Science is a recent, not archaic, and this is why your posturing is a bad faith argument.

[studiot]

I am not a linguist but it will certainly be interesting to hear the views of others on this as I support the notion of widening the scope of the English Language.

I am going to answer in note form so that my post will not be as long as yours. So if details are missing please ask for more.

 

1) English is not, and never has made any pretence to be phonetic.  There are several obstacles to phoneticising.

2) Unlike French and Chinese there is no controlling body for the language.  Interestingly English was made the official language of China in the 1950s.

3) When we talk seriously about English we should specify which English ?

 

I agree that @joigus' example is incorrect however how would you describe the following statement

The bath ?

The first th is pronounced differently from the second and the letter a is pronounced differently depending upon your dialect.

If you are going to extend the english alphabet I would suggest that the letter a is a more worthy candidate the the digraph 'th'.

[joigus]

10 hours ago, Tristan L said:

Since when? The "th" in "rather" and the "th" in "with" are both pronounced exactly like the "th" in "the": as the voiced dental fricative. So "with the shovel" is pronounced with a long /ð/.

The vocal cords are vibrating when you pronounce "rather" while they're not when you pronounce "with" resulting in two very different sounds. Try it, and you'll see.

So, in answer to your question: Since the moment you pronounce them. Exactly as in "them" and "bath" (different).

I don't care what funny words any linguist uses to describe them. I've done an experiment, and in my book that is sacred.

[studiot]

21 minutes ago, joigus said:

The vocal cords are vibrating when you pronounce "rather" while they're not when you pronounce "with" resulting in two very different sounds. Try it, and you'll see.

So, in answer to your question: Since the moment you pronounce them. Exactly as in "them" and "bath" (different).

I don't care what funny words any linguist uses to describe them. I've done an experiment, and in my book that is sacred.

A better example would be lather (voiced) and lath (unvoiced) and lathe (voiced)

[joigus]

25 minutes ago, studiot said:

A better example would be lather (voiced) and lath (unvoiced) and lathe (voiced)

Yes. Now is this difference enough to justify a different symbol? I'm not saying it is.

The phonetics of English is very complicated indeed. It's almost as if every word constituted a case study (that's obviously an overstatement, as there are regularities, obviously). But there are clearly many many irregularities, which must have to do with history.

I won't pretend I'm an expert on this, of course. I just like to think about these things. And English has taken a lot of my thinking and observing.

[Markus Hanke]

5 hours ago, joigus said:

The phonetics of English is very complicated indeed.

If you think the phonetics of English are complicated, you should try German  Or one of the many tonal languages, such as Thai, or Chinese…

[John Cuthber]

3 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

f you think the phonetics of English are complicated, you should try German

Does German  have an equivalent of the 11 (or more) ways in which English pronounces "ough"?

[joigus]

5 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

If you think the phonetics of English are complicated, you should try German  Or one of the many tonal languages, such as Thai, or Chinese…

I tried with both German and Chinese. I had to give up on both, but I would recommend studying challenging languages if only to get an idea of the different ways in which information is organised in them. Chinese really was the biggest challenge in the sense that I realised I'd probably never become any fluent in it no matter how hard I tried taking it up that late in my life. 😢

[Markus Hanke]

20 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

Does German  have an equivalent of the 11 (or more) ways in which English pronounces "ough"?

It has similar challenges  Try for example the word “Eichhörnchennachwuchs“ (=offspring of squirrels), where you have three entirely different sounds for the combination “ch”, all in a single word. You get the idea.

17 hours ago, joigus said:

I tried with both German and Chinese.

Fair play! German is quite tough grammar-wise, whereas Chinese is simple in terms of structure, but requires lots of time and effort in memorising characters. I lived and worked in China for a year when I was younger, and immensely enjoyed learning it…but never used it afterwards, and now, 25 years later, I’ve forgotten pretty much everything 😕 You loose what you don’t use.

17 hours ago, joigus said:

I would recommend studying challenging languages if only to get an idea of the different ways in which information is organised

Couldn’t agree more! I love teaching myself languages - I find it a very useful way to keep the old brain in shape, and it also helps to break up old deeply ingrained habits of structuring information, as you very correctly say.

[KJW]

I heard a joke a few days ago:

Women regard men who know a second language as more attractive... unless it's Klingon.

 

 

Edited December 25, 2023 by KJW

[sethoflagos]

Just to correct some erroneous assumptions made above, the following quotation from Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eth is worth reading

Quote

Old English[edit]

The letter thorn was used for writing Old English very early on, as was ð, called eth. Unlike eth, thorn remained in common use through most of the Middle English period. Both letters were used for the phoneme /θ/, sometimes by the same scribe. This sound was regularly realised in Old English as the voiced fricative [ð] between voiced sounds, but either letter could be used to write it; the modern use of [ð] in phonetic alphabets is not the same as the Old English orthographic use. A thorn with the ascender crossed (Ꝥ) was a popular abbreviation for the word that.

The distinction between voiced and unvoiced 'th' has never been made in English by its representation as 'th', thorn or eth. They are simply alternates for the same pair of sounds. It's a common misunderstanding. In principle, you can go through a Beowulf manuscript swapping all the thorns for eths and vice versa, and still claim with some justification that you'd not introduced any spelling mistakes.

Whether the sound is voiced or unvoiced is governed by a) common contemporary usage (always) and b) the adjacent vowel sounds (usually). Not by its orthography.

 

[studiot]

27 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

Just to correct some erroneous assumptions made above, the following quotation from Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eth is worth reading

The distinction between voiced and unvoiced 'th' has never been made in English by its representation as 'th', thorn or eth. They are simply alternates for the same pair of sounds. It's a common misunderstanding. In principle, you can go through a Beowulf manuscript swapping all the thorns for eths and vice versa, and still claim with some justification that you'd not introduced any spelling mistakes.

 

 

We are all (well nearly all) learning things here.  +1

 

29 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

Whether the sound is voiced or unvoiced is governed by a) common contemporary usage (always) and b) the adjacent vowel sounds (usually). Not by its orthography.

Please note my comment about dialect and the pronunciation of the word bath.

Also compare bath and bathilith.

[sethoflagos]

2 hours ago, studiot said:

Please note my comment about dialect and the pronunciation of the word bath.

Not sure what the issue is with 'bath' - other than my version will be a lot shorter than yours. It still follows the rule: unvoiced for endings of nouns and adjectives; voiced for verb endings. So bathe has the silent 'e' to lengthen the 'a' and voice the 'th'. Compare breath/breathe; tooth/teethe; cloth/clothe etc.

A key one where I suspect we will differ is that I don't voice the ending of 'with' which is the older form that you Southerners forsook for some strange reason. 

[sethoflagos]

As a postscript for those who are interested in how deep the rabbits have dug this particular burrow.

Replacing the Latin alphabet with a phonemic alternate more suited to the English language is not a new idea. The best known is perhaps the Shavian alphabet produced under the bequest of the playwright George Bernard Shaw.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavian_alphabet

Quote

The Shavian alphabet (/ˈʃeɪviən/ SHAY-vee-ən;^[1] also known as the Shaw alphabet) is a constructed alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonemic orthography for the English language to replace the inefficiencies and difficulties of conventional spelling using the Latin alphabet. It was posthumously funded by and named after Irish playwright Bernard Shaw.

Shaw set three main criteria for the new alphabet. It should be:

1. at least 40 letters;
2. as phonetic as possible (that is, letters should have a 1:1 correspondence to phonemes);
3. distinct from the Latin alphabet to avoid the impression that the new spellings were simply misspellings.

Letters[edit]

The Shavian alphabet consists of three types of letters: tall, deep and short.^[2] Short letters are vowels, liquids (r, l) and nasals; tall letters (except Yea 𐑘 and Hung 𐑙) are voiceless consonants. A tall letter rotated 180° or flipped upside-down, with the tall part now extending below the baseline, becomes a deep letter, representing the corresponding voiced consonants (except Haha 𐑣). The alphabet is therefore to some extent featural.

48 letters might sound a lot for an alphabet, but Shavian doesn't use capitalisations, so it's actually shorter than our standard orthography.

Being phonemic, @studiot and I would use different spellings for 'bath': bib-are-thigh vs bib-ah-thigh for example.

Another difference may be that I don't have a 'strut' vowel in my dialect so I would spell 'up' not as up-peep (which sounds somewhat illegal anyway), but as wool-peep.

It would actually make for a very concise orthography. Standard written English is significantly more concise than most languages, but Shavian would further trim the character count of most texts by about 30% due mainly to the elimination of digraphs and clusters like 'ough' and 'ght'.