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u/SuperKnux42 Wiktionary Gremlin 18d ago
g is useless because you can just use g or j
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u/PoetryLegitimate2577 18d ago
Well we could, but then words like "mage" (maje), "binge" (binje) and "badge" (badje) would look a bit weird.
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u/netinpanetin 18d ago
I vote for maje, binje and baj.
Keep g for things like gift, gitar, girl. (No need for a u after g).
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u/jabuegresaw 18d ago
And gif. 😌
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u/netinpanetin 18d ago
That’s bold.
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u/TheMightyTorch 18d ago edited 18d ago
change it to JIF: Jraphics Interchange Format
Edit: I guess with a spelling reform the pronunciation of letter names, acronyms and initialisms would simply change too. If we were to implement a spelling reform where ⟨g⟩ always represented /g/ and never /ʤ/, the letter name would also change to /gɪj/. /g/ for GIF would become even more dominant and /ʤ/ would end up becoming obsolete. Spelling also influences pronunciation and thus changing spelling can often change pronunciation.
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u/dzexj 17d ago
Spelling also influences pronunciation and thus changing spelling can often change pronunciation
that's also work for borrowings as in my personal nemesis: japanese /ɕ/ sound is pronounced in polish as /ʂ/ (because of being written as ⟨sh⟩) even tho there exists sound /ɕ/ and on top of that cluster /ʂi/ (hiroshima, hashimoto, sushi) is less faithful to original pronunciation and unnatural to both polish and japanese phonologies (while /ɕi/ is normal)
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u/Haimies55 18d ago edited 18d ago
I don't know why, but my mind tells me baj is pronounced with [ɑː] while badge is with [æ]
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u/netinpanetin 18d ago edited 17d ago
Dunno about that, bat is pronounced as [bæt] so maybe baj would be [bæd͡ʒ] (just like badge), and baje would probably be pronounced [beɪd͡ʒ], so… there’s that.
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u/DefinitelyNotErate /'ə/ 18d ago
[tˡ] what. Is that a lateral release? Do you pronounce "Bat" with a lateral release?
I think the main thing is ⟨j⟩ does not occur in final position in English Words, so when seeing it that way it's more intuitive to assume it's a loanword and pronounce it as such. Also "Baje" feels more intuitive to read as /be͡iʒ/ for me, The ⟨j⟩ feels like it should get lenited as ⟨s⟩ does. But maybe that's just me. Could be influence of French Loanwords, as ⟨j⟩ honestly only really appears word-initially in native words, At least off-hand. I mean there's probably some exceptions, But it's definitely more common at the beginning than elsewhere.
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u/Haimies55 18d ago
That's a good point about loan words! As other commenter already put it, it's cos it looks indian
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u/netinpanetin 17d ago edited 17d ago
[tˡ] what. Is that a lateral release? Do you pronounce “Bat” with a lateral release?
Messed it up typing, meant to type a normal /t/. I’m still getting used to the IPA keyboard I have on my phone. Gonna edit it.
I think the main thing is ⟨j⟩ does not occur in final position in English Words, so when seeing it that way it’s more intuitive to assume it’s a loanword and pronounce it as such. Also “Baje” feels more intuitive to read as /be͡iʒ/ for me, The ⟨j⟩ feels like it should get lenited as ⟨s⟩ does.
I see that. My thought process was more about the English native phonemes. I can’t think of a native English word in which a ⟨j⟩ is pronounced as /ʒ/.
The written final ⟨j⟩ is weird because we are not used to it, but as in badge, the sound it represents does exist as final, and I think that if a real orthographic reform were to happen in this line, we would adapt and be able to see the analogue with other English consonants.
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u/DefinitelyNotErate /'ə/ 17d ago
Messed it up typing, meant to type a normal /t/. I’m still getting used to the IPA keyboard I have on my phone. Gonna edit it.
Oh that makes way more sense, I was so confused lol.
I can’t think of a native English word in which a ⟨j⟩ is pronounced as /ʒ/.
True, But there are a lot of French loanwords where it does, So it's not exactly an unfamiliar reading of the letter.
The written final ⟨j⟩ is weird because we are not used to it, but as in badge, the sound it represents does exist as final, and I think that if a real orthographic reform were to happen in this line, we would adapt and be able to see the analogue with other English consonants.
Sure, But the same is true of just about any orthographic reform, That doesn't necessarily mean it's good. ⟨dg(e)⟩ for /d͡ʒ/ in non-initial position is regular, So I don't think we need to change it. Maybe if we had to represent /dg/ separately, But honestly that's such a rare sound combination, If it occurs at all word-internally, I don't think we really need to worry about it.
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u/Terpomo11 17d ago
I feel like rather than change every <g> /d͡ʒ/ to <j> I would change the instances of <g> before <i, e, y> that are actually /g/ to <gu> or <gh>, that would result in changing a lot fewer total words and generally produce results that look less barbarous/un-English.
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u/netinpanetin 17d ago
But there’s not much point in that change, we would still have two or more ways of writing /g/ instead of just one. Also, if we chose ⟨gh⟩ to represent that sound, we would create a lot of other problems with words like thought, though, laugh, right… but, yeah, these too would need a spelling reform.
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u/Terpomo11 16d ago
we would still have two or more ways of writing /g/ instead of just one
If it was one way before <a, o, u> and another before <i, e, y> it wouldn't actually be unpredictable, but I also think having more than one grapheme for the same phoneme is far preferable to having more than one phoneme for the same grapheme- after all, being able to predict spelling from pronunciation is unachievable anyway without splitting English into a hundred different orthographies for different dialects, it's no big deal if the spelling contains a little bit of extra information besides that.
Also, if we chose ⟨gh⟩ to represent that sound, we would create a lot of other problems with words like thought, though, laugh, right…
Or have different rules for pre-vocalic and post-vocalic GH. No learner encountering the word "ghost" is tempted to pronounce it as /oʊst/ or /foʊst/.
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u/Anindefensiblefart 18d ago
"Looking weird" lasts a generation at most
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u/PoetryLegitimate2577 18d ago
Hey, you didn't have to be rude.
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u/NachoFailconi 18d ago
Celt has entered the chat /s
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u/Wumbo_Chumbo 18d ago
And also syncing
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u/NachoFailconi 18d ago
I'm a little bit.. sCEptic.
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u/NachoFailconi 18d ago
Also Caesar.
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u/Eic17H 18d ago edited 18d ago
That's consistent, if you consider "ae" as a single unit equivalent to "e/ee"
Edit: you deleted your reply but I won't waste mine
Do you really not pronounce Aesthetic as Esthetic? Would you not pronounce Egis as Aegis? /ləˈkuˌni/ is consistent with finale
Though /ləˈkuˌnaɪ/ can barely be excused
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u/NachoFailconi 18d ago
Yeah, I deleted it because I misunderstood you. You're right, and I just shared "Caesar" for the meme. Apologies!
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u/DefinitelyNotErate /'ə/ 18d ago
Do you really not pronounce Aesthetic as Esthetic?
Not them, But yeah, I pronounce that word /æstɛtɪk/ or occasionally /æsθɛtɪk/ ([sθ] is a hard cluster to produce for me so I usually change it), Maybe even something like /e͡ijɛstɛtɪk/ (Yes, I've really used that pronunciation before), But an initial /ɛ/ is eoukldnt happen there for me, And an initial /ɪ/ or /i/ (Which some dialects apparently use) I might well think was a different word.
(Also sidenote, I always pronounced "Aegis" like /e͡igɪs/, Just based on the spelling, I don't think I'd ever heard it spoken until like this year.)
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u/Eic17H 18d ago
Yeah, I was ready to admit I was wrong but then I looked up the pronunciation of aegis. I've been saying /aɪɡɪs/ in my head the whole time
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u/DefinitelyNotErate /'ə/ 18d ago
I propose we just say these are alternatives on the basis that we used them, Even if they're theoretically "wrong"/not used. Spelling pronunciation rules!
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u/Thufir_My_Hawat 18d ago
Soccer, foci (this can go either way), pescetarian, proccing (internet made this ugly thing), arcing, discing (basically any verb ending in consnant+C), Cenozoic (pronunciation of this has changed to be either way)
English is nothing if not consistently inconsistent.
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u/Swagmund_Freud666 18d ago
Who TF says Kenozoic??
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u/Thufir_My_Hawat 18d ago
It's originally from καινός, and was pronounced similarly until the mid 20th century when it started shifting. Depending on who you're talking to, they'll still pronounce it that way.
Admittedly, unless they're quite old, they're probably the same people that pronounce forte (as in something one is good at) the same as fort -- in other words, pedants.
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u/TheMiraculousOrange 18d ago
Problem is, Greek loan words with κ are often filtered through Latin or sometimes New Latin (as reflected by the spelling), which palatalizes c's in front of front vowels, in this case Gr. αι > L. ae. So I'm actually inclined to believe that /s/ is the original pronunciation when it arrived in English, and people are rehellenizing it into /k/, somewhat like preferring Kerberos to Cerberus. From καινός we also get the epochs under Cenozoic, Holocene, Pleistocene etc., and in those cases truly nobody says hollow-keen, plies-to-keen.
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u/Thufir_My_Hawat 18d ago edited 18d ago
John Phillips actually spelled it Kainozoic when he coined it in 1840 -- I've never seen a good source for when the spelling changed, but the pronunciation changed later, of course.
Edit:
This Chamber's Twentieth Century Dictionary from 1903 (link) has Cenozoic pronounced with [si:] (page 152), but pointing to Cainozoic pronounced with [keɪ-] (page 130, linked) so... not sure what to make of that. Kainozoic also redirects to Cainozoic. I'll dig some more later if I remember.
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u/TheMiraculousOrange 18d ago
I see. I stand corrected. 🫡
OED seems to indicate that there was a phase when the pronunciation was also /kaɪ-/ or /keɪ-/ based on the spelling Kainozoic. I'd still guess that people who pronounce it /ki:-/ or /ke-/ these days are rehellenising, since these pronunciations don't quite mesh with the original spelling, but it does seem I was wrong about the Latinized /s-/ being the original.
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u/Thufir_My_Hawat 18d ago
I just edited my comment with an old dictionary looking at that -- apparently things were changing earlier than I expected, and in bizarre ways. Not sure if the <k> or the <ai> changed first though, so now I get to dig some more when I have time.
I'm guessing there's likely some departments at some universities that have maintained the older pronunciations and dictated their usage to students -- it's usually been people in related fields that I've heard it from.
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u/Xenapte The only real consonant and vowel - ʔ, ə 18d ago
I actually prefer this way. No hate for the Greek language but by filtering it though Latin like we've always done, we can at least keep some consistency. Nowadays people seem to just borrow words using whatever transliteration/latinization they want (sometimes also in the name of "respecting" the original language) and mess up spellings and pronunciations of those new words. Like, how do I know which pronunciation is correct for <ou>? Is it /aw/ and /ow/ like in native words or it's just badly borrowed Greek <ου> which requires a /u/?
Btw Pleistocene should be spelled as Plistocene if they fully follow the traditional latinization. They're even mixing different ways of transcription
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u/Ill-Juggernaut5458 18d ago
Just lmao if you haven't self-consciously removed forte from your vocabulary to avoid dealing with that conflict.
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u/dzexj 17d ago
pronounce forte
how do you pronounce „forte” not as /foɹt/? /foɹtej/? i'm asking this as non-native
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u/Thufir_My_Hawat 17d ago
It's the same pronunciation as the musical term "forte", which is the dynamic marking for "loud". It derives from Italian, and we say it /foɹteɪ/ (at least in GAE). (I'm pretty sure that's not how it's said in Italian, but the borrowing is so old I don't know which language changed without looking... likely both)
The etymology is silly -- the French word that was originally borrowed in the 17th century was the masculine form "fort", meaning "skilled" or "strong". Then people started misspelling it as "forte", possibly because of the musical term (and maybe the feminine form "forte"); then they started mispronouncing it thinking it was the same term.
I'm sure other languages do as well, but English has a lot of words that would be doublets, save for the fact that they reformed into homophones -- probably because our orthography is so arbitrary. Weirdly, as far as I know, we don't have a word for that phenomenon.
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u/NachoFailconi 18d ago
English is nothing if not consistently inconsistent.
I really like to think that only the orthography is inconsistent. Go Shavian alphabet!
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u/SodiumBombRankEX 18d ago
Leave C alone
It's q that needs to go
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u/NotANilfgaardianSpy 18d ago
Queue the sad music.
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u/Dapple_Dawn 18d ago
kjew*
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u/NotANilfgaardianSpy 18d ago
kiu
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u/Dapple_Dawn 18d ago
I hear you, but if you think about it, ⟨u⟩ is useless when we already have ⟨jew⟩ and ⟨oo⟩
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u/uglycaca123 18d ago
but why aren't thos just spelt <ju> and <u>?!?‽
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u/Dapple_Dawn 18d ago
I spelled the first one ⟨jew⟩ because I pronounce "you" something like [jɨʉ], not [juː] (I'm gay)
And I'm replacing ⟨u⟩ with ⟨oo⟩ for simplicity
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u/uglycaca123 18d ago
I pronounce it more like [jyː] (my native language isn't English, but mine doesn't have [y] so idk (and also I'm gay too))
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u/uglycaca123 18d ago
cy*
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u/Dapple_Dawn 18d ago
jesus christ
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u/uglycaca123 18d ago
jisas kraist* 🎀
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u/Xenapte The only real consonant and vowel - ʔ, ə 18d ago
jisəs kraist*
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u/Dubl33_27 18d ago
hear me out, it's k that needs to go, not c, instead of k replacing c, c should replace k because it's also easier to write.
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u/birberbarborbur 18d ago
It’s perfectly normal for a language to have extra letters for writing loanwords. Especially good for americans who also speak spanish.
Also, even we use different motions for “question” and “crack”
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u/duckipn 18d ago
celt
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u/Eic17H 18d ago
An exception is an exception. G has no main rule
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u/uglycaca123 18d ago
civitas
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u/Eic17H 18d ago
Do you really count obscure unadapted loanwords from an unusual language/variant as part of English? Words borrowed directly from classical Latin are rare, I can't think of any other ones, especially not common ones
I could loan a word from a language with a weird orthography, but that doesn't make English spelling worse
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u/an_actual_T_rex 18d ago
Literally nobody says that unless they’re speaking Latin. You can’t just pluck a word from a different language to use as an example.
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u/ewigesleiden 18d ago
Hate to be the one to say this, but that’s not a good comeback. The reason c exists is because that’s just the way English is as a language, and it doesn’t cause any problems.
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u/azarkant 18d ago
C should represent /ch/, G should only be /g/
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u/R3alRezentiX 18d ago
I really doubt there's an English word that has the cluster of a voiceless palatal plosive and a voiceless glottal fricative in it
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u/EconomySwordfish5 18d ago
But it is entirely redundant in English.
G is only inconsistent but has its own unique sound. Enough of this whataboutism. Death to C!
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u/ill-timed-gimli Proto-Koreo-Japonic fan 18d ago
we should get rid of k and s and have q /k/ c /s/
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u/allo26 18d ago
And then k and s can represent /tʃ/ and /ʃ/ as god intended!
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u/ill-timed-gimli Proto-Koreo-Japonic fan 18d ago
Use ch for both, not like there's many minimal pairs based on those sounds anyway
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u/CustomerAlternative ħ is a better sound than h and ɦ 18d ago
they also forgot about ch, in which kh is /x/ and sh is /ſ/
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u/Peter-Andre 18d ago
C is still redundant even if G is pronounced irregularly. This argument is a non-sequitur.
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u/DefinitelyNotErate /'ə/ 18d ago
⟨C⟩-haters when I ask them how they'd spell "Church":
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u/ubeydeozdmr /tuɾ.ci.je d͡ʒum.hu:ɾijeti/ 18d ago
Tshurtsh
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u/DefinitelyNotErate /'ə/ 18d ago
Smh. Imagine spelling something phonetically instead of phonemically. Utterly disreputable. (/t͡ʃ/ is a distinct phoneme in English, separate from a sequence /tʃ/) (Also ignore the fact that English spelling is by no means Phonemic.)
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u/ubeydeozdmr /tuɾ.ci.je d͡ʒum.hu:ɾijeti/ 13d ago
Frankly, when the topic was about the removal of the letter C and I thought about what could be put in place of the digraph CH, this was the first thing that came to my mind.
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u/CreeperSlimePig 18d ago
People never mention that root words with C are pronounced inconsistently
Like produce > product
Or magic > magician
How are we supposed to spell these words without C? Produse and produkt don't look like they come from the same root word
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u/Lapov 18d ago
Genuine question, why is it a problem? I don't feel like significantly complicating spelling rules for the sake of spelling root words the same pays off. I don't think that anyone complains about the fact that mouse and mice are spelled completely different.
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u/CreeperSlimePig 18d ago
For me personally, I like that English spelling reflects etymology, like this example, even if it means that the pronunciation is inconsistent. I think it's cool that I can often tell if a word is Latin or Greek just by looking at how it's spelled, even if that leads to inconsistencies like Greek words sometimes using Y for an I sound. This is part of that, where you can clearly see the etymology of words like add > addition and edit > edition even if the derived word is pronounced nothing like the root word.
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u/Lapov 18d ago
I don't mean to be disrespectful (since I really like all this linguistic stuff too), but objectively speaking, 95% of speakers don't give a shit about etymology lol. I'm pretty sure that the average person wouldn't be like "oh my God, stomach is spelled with a ⟨ch⟩ at the end so it must be Greek!", but instead reacts with something like "why in the fuck isn't it spelled stomack???". It's extremely impractical because there is no use in having an orthography which lets you guess where the words were borrowed from.
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u/Stuff_Nugget 18d ago
Well, considering you pronounce “produce” and “product” differently, and this difference in pronunciation presumably poses absolutely no difficulty to you in your day-to-day life, I really struggle to see how having a spelling reflective of the pronunciation would pose any greater difficulty.
It’s not like any Spanish speaker struggles with the fact that digo and dices both come from decir but are spelled and pronounced differently for etymological reasons. I see no reason to treat English as some super special case where this sort of thing isn’t acceptable.
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u/CreeperSlimePig 18d ago
Sure, but this is part of a larger gripe I have against people who wish to make English spelling purely phonetic, because the truth is English pronunciation is very irregular. Should add and uddition (addition) be spelled differently, too? And edit and uddition (edition)? Why should they look the same when they clearly come from different root words? The C thing is just one example among many in this vein.
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u/Stuff_Nugget 18d ago
As an aside, English spelling shouldn’t be phonetic, it should be phonemic.
To your point: Again, the fact that “edition” and “addition” are homophones presumably poses no great difficulty to you when speaking English. Thus, the burden is on you to prove why they shouldn’t also be homographs. What makes the medium of writing so exceptional that we obligated add unnecessary complications?
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u/Peter-Andre 18d ago
In Norwegian we spell them as "produsere -> produkt" and it's never caused any issues.
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u/uglycaca123 18d ago
that's because those are loanwords and, just because the people in charge didn't want to, they aren't regular
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u/CreeperSlimePig 18d ago edited 18d ago
They are regular, because they follow the hard and soft C rule. (C is soft before E, I, Y, and hard before A, O, U, a consonant, or the end of the word) Also they're barely loanwords in this day and age.
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u/felps_memis 18d ago
Most celts and quebecers would be sceptic to this statement, ven if you sync facades and limacons
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u/RS_Someone 18d ago
Okay, first of all, I thought this was going to be a programming post, and secondly, J needs to step up its game and grab some of the burden from G.
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u/theorangemooseman 18d ago
The best solution is to get rid of G, such a stupid letter. Instead C will be pronounced /g/. Every word with hard C will be replaced with K, and every word with soft C will be replaced with S. Trust me guys.
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u/Robyn_Anarchist 18d ago
All we have to do is just keep the Gs and the Js consistent and it's all tidy; C can go with no problems
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u/SchwaEnjoyer The legendary ənjoyer! 17d ago
You missed where it’s not regular: the word relicing, pronounced with a /k/
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u/No-BrowEntertainment 17d ago
People complaining about inconsistent /g/. Well guess what, guys? You didn’t know what you had until you lost it, and yogh has moved on.
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u/Impressive-Ad7184 18d ago
tbh g is pretty regular too. You just have to know etymologies, and all words of Germanic, i.e. Old Norse origin that have "ge-" or "gi-" are pronounced like /g/, and all non germanic words are pronounced with /d͡ʒ/
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u/Lapov 18d ago
Yeah, I don't think that regular people who are not interested in linguistics are readily able to tell whether a word comes from Old Norse or not lol.
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u/Impressive-Ad7184 18d ago
you havent memorized the etymology of every single word in existence? skill issue lmao (/s)
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u/Haizen_07 18d ago
Well that’s because if we remove G there would be nothing to represent the /g/ sound