Prevalence of spelling reforms

[Chuma]

English and French are languages which have had writing for a long time and have had a lot of pronunciation changes, so they have spellings that are for from the pronunciation. Finnish on the other hand has not had writing for quite than long, and is also more conservative, so the spelling is basically phonemic. My natlang Swedish has had writing for a relatively long time, although not quite as long as English, and it has changed quite a bit, although not quite s much as English. But apparently it is considerably more keen on spelling reforms, and therefore it has a notably "easier" spelling.

So I'm wondering, what's the situation in the rest of the world? I realise most languages of the world have not had writing for very long, or at least not nominally phonemic writing (i.e. alphabet, syllabary etc.). But it might still be possible to identify some other languages that differ in how happy they are about spelling reforms. It might also be interesting to consider where those differences come from.

After all, some nations (Iceland) try to preserve their languages and avoid loanwords. If I was a government that wanted to interfere in language, I would say that everything should be spelled the way it's pronounced. Does anyone do that?

[finlay]

English and French are languages which have had writing for a long time and have had a lot of pronunciation changes, so they have spellings that are for from the pronunciation. Finnish on the other hand has not had writing for quite than long, and is also more conservative, so the spelling is basically phonemic. My natlang Swedish has had writing for a relatively long time, although not quite as long as English, and it has changed quite a bit, although not quite s much as English. But apparently it is considerably more keen on spelling reforms, and therefore it has a notably "easier" spelling.

So I'm wondering, what's the situation in the rest of the world? I realise most languages of the world have not had writing for very long, or at least not nominally phonemic writing (i.e. alphabet, syllabary etc.). But it might still be possible to identify some other languages that differ in how happy they are about spelling reforms. It might also be interesting to consider where those differences come from.

If you look to Asia, you've got Chinese, which has had writing for thousands of years and only just changed it this century – and even then, some countries still use Traditional hanzi. Obviously, there's little sound-grapheme correspondence anyway, but there is some, and it's been obscured by thousands of years, so there's less than there was when the system was invented. Korea has abandoned hanja altogether, pretty much, and has morphophonemic spelling. Japanese can go fuck itself.

But then look to the Brahmic-derived scripts of Asia and you've got just as much of a mess, particularly when you look at things like Tibetan and Burmese, which haven't changed their spelling systems in longer than English, as far as I know. Thai is also a good candidate here (seems to be the Swedish of the East), as like Tibetan, they have a fairly complex system of indicating tone which isn't very intuitive. I think Lao and Khmer, which are similar to Thai, have had spelling reforms fairly recently. And then India is a bit of a clusterfuck to begin with what with all the different languages, but Hindi for instance seems to do things that Sanskrit wouldn't have done with its spelling, like not indicating that a word doesn't end in a vowel with the little flick thing.

[Declan]

Irish wasn't reformed for centuries even though it had completely and utterly simplified, and even when it was reformed (and changed writing alphabet too to modern Roman), there's still a handful of silent letters lurking around. I've found the contrast between French and German quite amusing. French is ridiculous but reform seems to be anathematic. German, on the other hand, seems to just love reformation, although it would seem to me that it needs it far less.

[Chuma]

"Love" I wonder - there seems to have been some resistance to the recent reforms. But yes, they seem less reluctant. Which is of course why they need it less - if you like reforms, you do them, and then you don't need them...

[linguoboy]

Korea has abandoned hanja altogether, pretty much, and has morphophonemic spelling.

Han'geul orthography underwent a serious reform at the beginning of last century. That's when the morphophonemic principle was entrenched, in fact. Before then it was written purely phonemically, e.g. 눈 /nwun/ "eye", with subject particle 누니 /nwuni/ vs contemporary 눈 /nwun/, 눈이 /nwun.i/. At the time there were even proposals to write it purely linearly, in imitation of European languages. I'll admit to being happy those didn't go through.

Palatalisation in the central dialects gave rise to a significant series of changes. Alveolar obstruents were replaced with post-alveolars before /i/ and /j/, e,g. 텬 /thyen/ "celest- [SK]" > 천 /chen/. In initial position, alveolar sonorants get lost completely, e.g. 닢 /niph/ "leaf" > 잎 /iph/. There are also many cases of umlaut and vowel contraction, e.g. ㅎ·여 /hoye/ "do" > 해 /hay/, but even more conspicuous is the jettisoning of alay-a or "lower a", represented by a middle dot, which in Seoul speech had fallen together with eitherㅏ/a/ or ㅡ /u/.

North Korea introduced a slightly different set of reforms when it did away with Hanja. Notably NK orthography preserves /l/ in initial position where in SK it would be dropped or replaced with /n/, e.g. NK 력량 /leklyang/ "strength" vs SK 역량 /yeklyang/. Remarkably, this has led to a widespread adoption of spelling pronunciations, so that in North Korea this word would be pronounced [ɾjʌŋɾjaŋ] whereas in the South it is [jʌŋɲjaŋ].

[Ser]

If you look to Asia, you've got Chinese, which has had writing for thousands of years and only just changed it this past century (the 20th c.)

Not quite. Chinese standard orthography had been in a continuous change for centuries since its invention, continuously diverging and even progressing into different standards in the different regions (later states) of the Zhōu dynasty, and was only somewhat standardized once the Qín got to take a level in badass in the 3rd c. BC and conquered all the other states. Variants for characters continued to be used in formal texts though, hell, even in printed books, true standardization only happened until basically modern times (just look at the examples in this blog entry, most shocking is the use of both 後 and 后—nowadays 後 is the standard Traditional Chinese form and 后 is the standard Simplified Chinese one).

• "What do these variations tell us? That even though we are looking at printed culture, which in our minds is often associated with an increasing level of consistency, in these minjian publications we do not see any sign of moving in that direction. Perhaps the study of shanben prints would lead to very different results, but the truth is that these popular publications comprised the overall majority of printed books at any given period. In this sense, they are more representative of how people wrote or what degree of graphic consistency was tolerated in their daily application of writing."—Imre Galambos.

And this is just about standard characters. Handwritten Chinese, on the other hand...

[Niedokonany]

Remarkably, this has led to a widespread adoption of spelling pronunciations, so that in North Korea this word would be pronounced [ɾjʌŋɾjaŋ] whereas in the South it is [jʌŋɲjaŋ].

Wow, this seems stupider than the sunt thing in Romanian.

[Aurora Rossa]

Wow, this seems stupider than the sunt thing in Romanian.

What is the sunt thing in Romanian and why is it stupid?

[linguoboy]

Wow, this seems stupider than the sunt thing in Romanian.

What is the sunt thing in Romanian and why is it stupid?

Rumanian underwent a significant spelling reform in 1993 in order to break with the country's Communist past. As a result, î was eliminated in many positions, including the word sînt "am". The official spelling is now sunt, which I imagine represents an attempt to make the connexion to Latin sum more explicit. Perhaps XF is referring to people adopting the spelling pronunciation ['sunt]?

[Eyowa]

This is pure speculation, but it could be that speakers of a language with almost phonemic spelling are more accepting of spelling reforms than those of more heinously-spelt languages, because the changes are less drastic. Someone familiar with reformed German orthography would no doubt still be able to read traditional spellings, but if English suddenly switched to phonemic spelling people who grew up using the new system might have great difficulty reading older texts.

I'm looking over the 1996 German spelling reform now and some of the changes seem downright bizarre, like breaking up noun-verb compounds (in which the verb is the head) so the noun can be capitalized. WTF??

[linguoboy]

I'm looking over the 1996 German spelling reform now and some of the changes seem downright bizarre, like breaking up noun-verb compounds (in which the verb is the head) so the noun can be capitalized. WTF??

This is one reason it prompted so much resistance. The rules on the use of eszett were adopted by almost everyone without much fuss because they made more sense than the previous regime. But the same can't be said for some of the more arbitrary changes. Sorry, but even after all this time, "Rad fahren" and "auf englisch" simply look wrong to me.

[Ser]

This is pure speculation, but it could be that speakers of a language with almost phonemic spelling are more accepting of spelling reforms than those of more heinously-spelt languages, because the changes are less drastic.

Hell no, every time the Academies want to change something about Spanish orthography, even if just very slight things, reactions, reactions, and more reactions is all what they get.

[finlay]

Yet Spanish could really do with getting rid of the letter <V>. It's hardly phonemic in that regard.

[Declan]

But the same can't be said for some of the more arbitrary changes. Sorry, but even after all this time, "Rad fahren" and "auf englisch" simply look wrong to me.

It's supposed to be "auf englisch", "auf deutsch" etc.? I'm almost sure I've never seen that used once, and I started learning German a quite a while after the reform was in force, so much so, that dass is perfectly natural to me, except the odd time my teacher or older people would forget.

[linguoboy]

But the same can't be said for some of the more arbitrary changes. Sorry, but even after all this time, "Rad fahren" and "auf englisch" simply look wrong to me.

It's supposed to be "auf englisch", "auf deutsch" etc.? I'm almost sure I've never seen that used once, and I started learning German a quite a while after the reform was in force, so much so, that dass is perfectly natural to me, except the odd time my teacher or older people would forget.

That was the convention when I began learning German, since englisch is being used adverbially here. Cf. im Englischen, aus dem Englischen, which were always spelled thus.

[Ser]

Yet Spanish could really do with getting rid of the letter <V>. It's hardly phonemic in that regard.

But at this point, trying to change that would be the bye-bye to the Academies. Hell, even the Chilean orthography reform (now obsolete) didn't dare to touch the topic of getting rid of etymological b and v.

The curious part of this is that the distinction of b and v by looking at etymology only was something the RAE introduced. During the Old Spanish period the distinction was phonetic: writers used b when they meant and used v when they meant [β̞] or [β]. When Old Spanish /b/ and /β/ merged, many words got new spellings: veuir (<Latin uīuere) 'to live' and beuir 'to drink' (<Lat. bibere) became biuir and beuer (with vowel changes to avoid merging the words). Other words continued to be spelled as in Old Spanish even after the merge though e.g. the pronoun vos, and learned borrowings followed Latin. The modern spellings vivir and beber are just the RAE's re-etymologizing of words with /b/ in the 18th century.

[Jipí]

Re: German. What still strikes me as odd as well besides the Rad fahren thing is that if the second part of the compound is a participle, that is written seperately as well now, except for compounds with a form of sein or something. TBH, I can't fucking remember and always have to look such things up now. Previously, AFAIK, the rule generally was that if the first part has the main stress, the compound is written together. Hence, radfahren, and no fuss about "faded" and "transparent" parts of compounds (when the word is perfectly transparent in both cases).

[Declan]

But the same can't be said for some of the more arbitrary changes. Sorry, but even after all this time, "Rad fahren" and "auf englisch" simply look wrong to me.

It's supposed to be "auf englisch", "auf deutsch" etc.? I'm almost sure I've never seen that used once, and I started learning German a quite a while after the reform was in force, so much so, that dass is perfectly natural to me, except the odd time my teacher or older people would forget.

That was the convention when I began learning German, since englisch is being used adverbially here. Cf. im Englischen, aus dem Englischen, which were always spelled thus.

Am I missing something in your post then? "auf englisch" being old, you shouldn't be growing used to it after all this time!

I don't think that part (Rad fahren) was effective either. That was never really a problem, all it did was confuse people, and even new learners like me, who've seen old and new rules mixed up. Just today, I say a German who couldn't read or write when the old rules were in force using "fuer Dich" etc.!

[Chuma]

It makes sense that some languages, such as English, would be harder to reform even a little - it just seems pointless, since with a small reform, the spelling would still be crazy. Also important when it comes to English, I would think, is the fact that there is so much reduction. A word - or more importantly a morpheme - can be pronounced so very differently depending on whether it's stressed, but it would be odd to start spelling things differently. This could be a contributing reason why Finnish has such a phonemic spelling (but from what I've heard they haven't actually done much reforming, so it's a moot point).

As for "Rad fahren", it's a silly reform in my opinion - why is it so important to spell the noun with a capital letter? So as not to offend the bicycle? If it was up to me, I would just remove the practice of using capital letters on nouns. Come to think of it, if it was up to me, I'd abolish case distinctions altogether.

(No, not grammatical case. Those are fun.)

[Timmytiptoe]

The Dutch Language Union is a committee that decides what the new spelling will be every ten years or so. Dutch has a fairly phonemic spelling, though there are some spelling distinctions no longer spoken (eg. <ij> and <ei>), and the process used to determine when a <k> is written in words from Latin is unfathomable to mere mortals.

[cybrxkhan]

The current Vietnamese alphabet has been around for 400 or so years, so the correspondence between pronunciation and spelling is not that bad. At least, it's not as bad as English and French. That's why most Vietnamese claim that the Vietnamese alphabet is very phonemic. However, even I have to disagree on this one, as there are a few discrepancies. Some have to do with sound mergers, but others are because of dialectal differences. For instance, some Vietnamese pronounce <tr> and <ch> the same, yet those two are clearly different digraphs. Vowels tend to be a more difficult topic, particularly since some of them sound kind of similar (even to fluent, native-born speakers). Still, it is possible to transcribe random Vietnamese down without knowing what the words actually are, but still get the spelling pretty close.

[Nortaneous]

I don't think that part (Rad fahren) was effective either.

That part is incredibly stupid and none of the German teachers I've ever had have ever used it.

[Yng]

The current Vietnamese alphabet has been around for 400 or so years, so the correspondence between pronunciation and spelling is not that bad. At least, it's not as bad as English and French. That's why most Vietnamese claim that the Vietnamese alphabet is very phonemic. However, even I have to disagree on this one, as there are a few discrepancies. Some have to do with sound mergers, but others are because of dialectal differences. For instance, some Vietnamese pronounce <tr> and <ch> the same, yet those two are clearly different digraphs.

That's not 'not being phonemic' though. You can still read it and know what sound to make without problems. I suppose it means there isn't a 1:1 grapheme:phoneme correspondence, though.

[Travis B.]

The current Vietnamese alphabet has been around for 400 or so years, so the correspondence between pronunciation and spelling is not that bad. At least, it's not as bad as English and French. That's why most Vietnamese claim that the Vietnamese alphabet is very phonemic. However, even I have to disagree on this one, as there are a few discrepancies. Some have to do with sound mergers, but others are because of dialectal differences. For instance, some Vietnamese pronounce <tr> and <ch> the same, yet those two are clearly different digraphs.

That's not 'not being phonemic' though. You can still read it and know what sound to make without problems. I suppose it means there isn't a 1:1 grapheme:phoneme correspondence, though.

In practice typically phonemic when applied to a spelling system means that there is an unambiguous 1:1 correlation between any given permitted sequence of graphemes and any given permitted sequence of phonemes, not that there is a 1:1 correspondence between individual graphemes and phonemes.

[Terra]

but if English suddenly switched to phonemic spelling people who grew up using the new system might have great difficulty reading older texts.

This is part of the problem. Take Turkey: They switched from the Arabic alphabet to the Roman alphabet. However, at the time of the change only a small portion of the country/nation was literate. For most people, there was no grand precedence to break.

They had to be drunk when they decided on the dotless/dotted <i> thing though.