The English language, like many other languages (Spanish, Italian, French,
German, Turkish, Dutch, Polish, etc) uses the Roman alphabet, which was
originally used for the Latin language. Its not so well suited to many of
the languages that came to use it, but its so deeply ingrained in our
culture after centuries of use, that it will never be changed.
In Russia, the Communists simplified the alphabet and the spelling of the
Russian language in the 1920s in order to make teaching people to read
easier. The Turks adopted the Roman alphabet in the 1920s because it was
better suited to their language than the Arabic alphabet used previously
(thus easier to learn to read and write). Both countries at the beginning of
the 20th Century had near universal illiteracy that their governments
decided to eradicate through mass education....which was achieved, and was
made possible by adopting easier writing systems.
Since nearly every English speaker can read and write thanks to nearly 200
years of universal public education in the USA, UK, Canada, and Australia,
most people are already using the old cumbersome system we have, and are
used to it. Reforming our spelling and alphabet would be hugely unpopular
because it would make people change. In countries where few could read,
change is easy to impose, since few have to 'un-learn' the old ways.
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On 5/26/11 8:48 PM, "Willie Wonka" <alienspecimen@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> ...weird murkin spellink...
>
> Actually, this is hilarious...I hope you intentionally spelled it like
> that...Thats how 99.99% of the Eastern Europeans would pronounce "spelling",
> including yours truly (well, up until about five years ago).
>
> I have a question tho...but lemme preface it with the statement that am asking
> out of curiosity, not because am being argumentative.
>
> Why would you want to stick with the current overly complicated
> spellature...:) It doesnt matter if English, American, French, German and
> bunch of other languages...
>
> Here is what I mean. Take for example Bulgaria...:) The Bulgarian alphabet,
> at times wrongly called Cyrillic, has enough letters to reproduce all the
> sounds in the language and you never ever need to learn spelling. Everything
> is spelled the way it is pronounced. Why dont you add additional letters to
> the English alphabet (for example), make everything easy, really...in today's
> environment, kids could use the time to learn something important...because, I
> can tell you that the Bulgarian kids are done learning the alphabet and
> spelling by the third quarter of first grade. Everything else from then on is
> used for building up the vocabulary. This also allows the second graders to
> read at a level comparable to sixth even seventh grade in the English speaking
> countries.
>
> I know that at least one Indian language is like that, although, no idea about
> how that affect the literacy of students compared to their Western
> counterparts which intelligence is being measured by how well you know the
> cumbersome rules of spelling.
>
> Once again, asking a simple question, not trying to start an argument.
>
> Boris
--
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