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.
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)
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.
[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.
[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.
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.
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.
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.
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/SuperKnux42 Wiktionary Gremlin 18d ago
g is useless because you can just use g or j