This is the transcript of an interesting (in my opinion:) blog about language.
The language of "Lovely" - a kind of TV/Internet-designed "UTOPIA" - which is a very interesting country...
"Logical Spelling for the Language Please."
Please use a language with logical spelling.
G B Shaw was right when he left that money in his will etc. etc. *continues banging on in a totally justified way about wanting logical spelling* long live king Danny!
-----What do you have in mind, to make it 'logical'? What you consider logical may not appear so to other people...
The vast majority of the world's languages have logical spelling in that the sounds that are made correspond to the spelling.It's just common sense.
------But everyone in different parts of the country/world speaks with a different accent... whose sound are we corresponding to?
I mean I take your point but the reality is that most languages have generally logical spelling systems whether we like that or not well there's the International Phonetic Alphabet which can transcribe every known phoneme..or it can invent symbols for new phonemes
Sure everyone may have different idea of what "logical" is.
But we are both of us agreeing on what "logical" means to us right now.
Because we are communicating.
And to me it's absurd to employ logic in grammar but not in spelling.
I never know why people ridicule Bernard Shaw for what he asked his money to do.
I genuinely think it is inevitable that English spelling will be rationalised one day.
Or maybe I should make that world spelling:).....
-----What's the fun in logical?
You can only understand the joke if it makes sense.
what's the fun in illogical?
Ideally Danny wants his country to run the world.
OK.
So we'd have to teach everyone in the world to speak English.
It would be far faster to teach them if English had more logical spelling.
Howzat?
-----English is as illogical as botswanian.
If I said I want Dannyland's language to be written in purple at all times, you wouldn't say "You may have a different idea of purple to others." (unless you were making a point about colour blindness.)
Logical can be creative too.
-------Purple is a fairly fluid concept. Part red, part blue - but at what point does it tip from being purple into either red or blue?
Spelling, on the other hand, either is or isn't. If there are going to be 'logical' rules then what you end up with is a settled 'right' way to spell things. Who decides what it is? Should it be based on my housemate's Leeds accent? That wouldn't be logical to me, it would be extremely difficult. Equally if we based spelling on my southern accent it would make no sense to her.
Essentially, then, we'd end up with a system which still didn't make sense to a great many people but they just had to learn to get along with. Which is exactly what we have at the moment. So, logically, I don't see the point of going to all the trouble of changing it.
Thanks for that. You would inevitably still have accents and dialects etc. I'm not trying to abolish them in Dannyland.
North Flat language would probably be different. But you could still have a logical spelling system it would have letters that were pronounced differently by different groups but it would be logical and consistent which is far better and much more fun if you ask me. There would be a standard form. There has to be a standard form - all languages have some form of standard form.
If everyone is speaking the same language, that is.
Seeing as you can have a standard form you might as well make it logical.
It works in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Etc. (almost everywhere... has BROADLY SPEAKING logical spelling....)
They all have loads of accents, dialects, etc.
Anyway a language has been defined as a dialect with an army and a navy just as a country is a bunch of people that can make war, according to some.
SO in a post-country world, the standard language would be the one that is agreed to freely by most people....
Which just shows how absurd nationalism and countries are which is the whole point of this if you ask me...
COUNTRIES ARE AN ABSURDITY!
Maybe one day they will see sense and abolish countries. ...
Anyway...don't know where this is going but it is interesting..
----------So, if you did change the spelling to a new and logical form, would you want to go back over things like works of literature and change them to make them fit? Or leave them be, and the new generation not understand them? A dilemma...-
-----------Who decides what it is? In this country it is the Oxford Dictionary which describes rather than prescribes like the Academie Franc,aise in France....It is up to Danny and his citizens to debate the question of language in Dannyland. And I think His Majesty should decide on the side of a beautiful logic and not some kind of higgledypiggeldy mess like we have now...
---------But words like 'higgledypiggledy' grow out of higgledypiggledy messes, not out of logic... and I like higgledypiggledy, as a word. I wouldn't want to be without it.
"So, if you did change the spelling to a new and logical form, would you want to go back over things like works of literature and change them to make them fit? Or leave them be, and the new generation not understand them? A dilemma..."
Well Chaucer can be read in Middle English or modern English. It's a choice. We still understand Chaucer in either.
Latin is dead but we still understand most of it, because of books....I'm talking longer term, maybe thousands of years... that's if we survive the next 50 years I think the world language that may evolve might be a bit different to English anyway, though it probably might be based on it..
.------------We only just understand Chaucer, with a lot of reading bits out loud and leading comments from English teachers.Yep people invent new words everyday.I invented "Yankosceptic" the other day. But the thing is it's spelt according to rules of a kind... -
------------What does it mean? Well it's self-explanatory I suppose.
If you can be "Eurosceptic" - doubtful/sceptical about some aspects of the EU, why can't you be "Yankosceptic"? - just a bit doubtful and sceptical about some aspects of the USA? By the way, I think you've changed my views. Sod spelling rules. Language will evolve without rools inevitably. And I think that spelling reform is inevitable for everyone's sanity so it might not need an edict from King Danny....
----------Oh, OK.
-----------But anyway, we're having a perfectly sensible and correctly spelled conversation without going insane.
-----------Plus I think you have to consider the fact that in a cybernation the rules of the internet also hold sway. People abbreviate, skip bits of spelling and grammar etc...If we change the language things will get "lost in translation"...TOTAL Translation is impossible.
So at the end of the day it leads to "there are no languages, there is only language."So in a post-country world, you'll be able to talk whatever language you want, if other people understand you is another question...It all comes down to either you agree to a system or you don't..
and you are free not to...."
If you can be "Eurosceptic" - doubtful/sceptical about some aspects of the EU, why can't you be "Yankosceptic"? "A prime example of LOGIC being CREATIVE, don't you think??-
----------Is that technically logic, or just borrowing?
------------(But I do like the word).The process which led to the formation of the word definitely involved logic...I am glad you like it.
It involves logic because it involves
IF X=Y IN SITUATIONS Z,
THEN X=Y FOR ALL SITAUTIONS THAT ARE Z.....
or something like that??Nice talking to you fellow citizen. It's been invigorating.
Countries are absurd, apart from Dannyland because Dannyland is the only country that shows that countries are absurd !Is that logic??
-------------I agree, a good conversation. A few hundred years ago, there were no spelling rules. You could spell houw yoo lieked. If we went back to that it miyut bee funn. Or we could invent some rules and try and stick to them, except they could be more logical and consistent ones, or we could just stay as we are...Whatever way, I suppose what we are trying to do is communicate so whatever works, works....-
---------------Accents don't usually influence the spelling of worlds. For example i live in Lancashire (great part of the world...) and i would pronounce 'bath' or 'path' with a short 'a' sound whereas people from other parts of the UK (usually towards the south) would pronounce those words as 'baaath' and 'paaath' with long 'a' sounds. Doesn't affect the spelling of the word though...Thought i'd do my first slightly intellectual message. Quite hard work on a sunday evening though!!"
Countries are absurd, apart from Dannyland because Dannyland is the only country that shows that countries are absurd!"I think this is a bit like a paradox. A bit like the Cretan Liar's Paradox. "All Cretans are liars. I am a Cretan." Is this man talking the truth? Eventually you have to separate the two elements, I think somehow. Countries are absurd. End of story.
(Long Live King Danny!) :)
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