On Sep 6, 2005, at 17:22, Weronika Patena wrote:
I wonder if any languages actually update their spelling to match new
pronounciation...
Russian did. After the October Revolution, the so-called "hard sign"
was from all the words where it no longer served a function, leaving it
only in a few places where it separated a preposition ending in a
consonant from the root word which started with one. Originally, it
was, I think, more a breath than a real sound, serving just that
purpose - of separation, but it was ubiquitous. Made trying to read
pre-1917 texts in original pure hell <g>
But revolutions, quite often, change more that the social or political
stucture; if I remember correctly, the French Revolution is
"responsible" for the metric system (they also tried to change the
calendar, but that didn't "take" <g>)
there are just three pairs of letters (or letter combinations)
that are pronounced the same but written differently,
Only three??? Poles must have updated their spelling in the past 33 yrs
(our age difference) <g>
ch/h;
rz/z (with a dot);
ci/c (with a slash)
si/s (ditto)
zi/z (ditto)
And I'm sure I've forgotten some :)
The "nasal vowels" pose problems, too, though not as great: on, or a
(with a hook)? en, or e with a hook?
The reason for that problem is apparently that when the spelling was
established,
those letters were still pronounced differently, but it's changed
since then.
Indeed. Even as late as my childhood, the pronounciation of h and ch
was quite distinct among those Poles re-settled from the east
(Lithuania and Ukraina), probably because they'd been in contact with
Russian, which uses (and vocalises) gh, where we write h. But, in
central and western Poland, the difference disappeared earlier; the
only place one could still hear it before WWII was in theatre, among
the classically trained actors... How do I know? Early post WWII films,
old records and "oral history" :)
Linguistics is fun...
As fascinatiing as lace <g>
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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