# GOL: Out with the 'Q', in with the 'TH'; and other letter ideas



## BlackCaptain (Jun 18, 2003)

*Out with the 'Q', in with the 'TH'; and other letter ideas*

Ok, I declare myself the official letter changer of TTF. Why does Q need it's own letter?! Simply a K with a W! That's crazy! And how can you get TH out of T and H. Whoever created the alphabet was a weird-o...

I think, that the National Letter Association (probly doesnt even exist ) should come up with a new and seperate letter for the sound represented by TH. 


Also, Z is vastly underused! 2/3 times in that previous sentance, S's were used as Z's! That's crazy! 

Im just feeling like talking alot, so this may sound completely bogus... Does anyone else agree with me?


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## Lhunithiliel (Jun 18, 2003)

If I got you right, you're going to make the life of translators much easier!  

BTW, what a nice avatar!!! Suilts your forum name perfectly!


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## Ledreanne313 (Jun 18, 2003)

I think whoever created the English Language was stupid...really!
Each letter can be said differently, and there is no way top tell unless someone tells you! What if everyone lost their memory...no one would be able to talk in english!

And 'ck'...couldn't it be a 'k'?? And 'ea' is pronounced 'ee'??? Why?

Another combination for 'th' is 'dh'. The 'dh' sound is either the 'th' sound or a 'nr' sound...or maybe that's just elvish?

Anne


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## BlackCaptain (Jun 18, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Lhunithiliel _
> *If I got you right, you're going to make the life of translators much easier!
> 
> BTW, what a nice avatar!!! Suilts your forum name perfectly!   *



I hope so... I have a last name that begins with Z, so I'm all for changing thingz with S's to Z'z. Doez that sound right? Or iz it making no sense?

Haha... Yeah I think so...


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## CelebrianTiwele (Jun 19, 2003)

lol, very nice avatar BC. i need to change mine... ::goes in search of avatar:: i agree with the letter changing thing, but dh for th? i never read the back of the Sil till i finished it, so i pronounced Maedhros as Mee-a-dros... silly me


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## Lantarion (Jun 19, 2003)

> Why does Q need it's own letter?! Simply a K with a W! That's crazy!


I agree. And 'Q' is never used on its own in English, but is always accompanied by the letter 'u'. Even in Latin (whence I presume the English language got its usage of the 'qu') the letter Q is always used with a 'u'.
Even Tolkien seemed to think that Q does not need its own letter: the _tengwa_ called _quessë_ has the meaning of 'qu/kw'. 


> And how can you get TH out of T and H.


In all actuality (if we're following the rules of phonetics, which English certainly neglects heavily), you can't! Every alphabet in the world that I know of (note that an 'alphabet' means a set of characters which each correspond to one letter or sound) has its own symbol for 'th'. The ancient Anglo-Saxon runes (which Tolkien also used, e.g. in the Hobbit) certainly do; and the greek letter _theta_ corresponds to 'th'.


> Whoever created the alphabet was a weird-o...


As far as I know, the English language (IMO the most incredibly idiotic language in the world; but also one of the most beautiful) was a mix of al least three affectors (Latin, Anglo-Saxon, and probably some other Germanic dialects too), and evolved over a very long time. Jallan knows a helluva lot more than I do about this; he would probably give you a detailed description of how the English langauge was born. 


> i agree with the letter changing thing, but dh for th?


What Tolkien did was he supplemented the letters 'th' as the "soft" 'th' (e.g. in 'thorn') and used 'dh' to differentiate it from the "hard" 'th' (e.g. in 'this'). [PS: 'Maedhros' is pronounced "ma-e*dh*-ros". ]

The English language is probably the last phonetic language in the world, along with French; while languages like Spanish and Finnish are completely phonetic, with few or no exceptional rules in pronunciation. I think phonetic languages are more natural, and more humanistic in a sense. But I love the English language because it can be molded to incredible limits; and in my opinion English is the best language for poetry and verse (except Finnish, naturally!! ).
So I would leave the English language and pronunciation as it is, but I would critisize its lack of phonetics. 

You know, I really aught to move this into the Prancing Pony and add "GoL" into the title.. I think I will, soon.


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## BlackCaptain (Jun 19, 2003)

Next topic...

X? K and S! WHy does it need it's own symbol?!

CH and SH... Need I further explain?!

KN =ing N?! Just use N! Know, Knight... Whats up with that?! I'm gonna conform my own alphabet some day... Just watch...


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## Eliot (Jun 19, 2003)

Something I find really annoying about the letter X, is that in words like "Xylophone", it has a "Zylophone" sound to it. I find that quite annoying.


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## Ledreanne313 (Jun 19, 2003)

I agree with the KN thing, BC! I think we should protest and boycot using KN.

Anne


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## HobbitGirl (Jun 20, 2003)

Yes! YES! Thank you, BlackCaptain! Finally, someone who agrees with me that the English language is idiotic!

One of my biggest pet pieves=the letter C. C needs to DIE. It serves no purpose! One: It has no sounds of its own. Two: Not only does it steal sounds, but it steals from TWO VERY respectable letters--K and S. Three: It butts in line. A, B, C. Why isn't it A, B, D? Forget C! C is a usless, arrogant waste of time!

And another thing: WHY ISN'T PHONETIC SPELLED PHONETICALLY?! Whoever (or whatever) brought that about was a warped and twisted individual.

And related to the TH thing: what in the world is with PH? Just use F! And how do you get an F sound from P and H? You don't. More dementedness.


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## Zale (Jun 20, 2003)

I'm surprised that HobbitGirl is the only person who has mentioned 'C'. It would be so easy to get along without it! Just use 'K' or 'S'.
And there is no need for 'TH, 'CH', 'SH' or 'ZH', if you look at it a certain way. It seems as though 'H' here is used as "transform this sound into a fricative or an affricate and you're there". Why not have another symbol, like a dot above or below the letter? We don't use those for anything else in English. It would confuse any translators, though.


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## VioletFalcon129 (Jul 14, 2003)

What really bothers me about english are the stupid rules, like " i before e excpt after c or when sounded like a in niebor or wiegh." gir. when could be spelled wen without a problem. except dousn't need both x and c. niebor could be naybor. and i want library spelled lybrary. i could go on and on. i hate spelling sooooooooooo much. no one wonmders why, do they?


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## Ledreanne313 (Jul 14, 2003)

Route...need I say more? How is it really said? Rout or Root? 

Anne


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## HLGStrider (Jul 15, 2003)

B. . .b. . .but C IS MY FAVORITE LETTER!

I LOVE THE C! DON'T TOUCH MY C!

C is for cookie, that's good enough for me. C is for cookie, that's good enough for me. C is for cookie, that's good enough for me. OH! Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C. . .

NOW EVERYBODY SING!

C is for cookie, that's good enough for me. C is for cookie, that's good enough for me. C is for cookie, that's good enough for me. OH! Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C. . .

Th I hate. I can't say them. They come out like f's. You don't know how humiliating it was for six-year-old me to ask for a glass of water. . .

"Mom, I'm firsty." 
"You're what?"
"Firsty."
"No, thirsty, dear."

etc

And my uncle's teased. . .sigh. . .


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## Elfarmari (May 5, 2004)

I just found this thread and completely agree! I've never really understood English spelling, as in many cases it is completely un-phonetic, and which has many words that are either pronounced the same but spelled different (bow, bough, tow, toe, so, sow, right, rite, etc.), or pronounced differently but spelled the same (bow, sow, etc.). C is useless, Q and X are unnecessary, and s used to sound like z is just pointless. This is something I have realized even more since I started writing with Tengwar, which make sense! 

It would make much more sense to have separate letters for th/dh, ch, and sh/zh. We should come up with our own, sensible, spelling of English with some new letters!


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## HLGStrider (May 7, 2004)

No no no no no no no. . .I like my language random and illogical! It suits me better that way. . .that's why I occasionally throw in words in Spanish or words that don't exist or meow or something, to keep it even mor random.


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## joxy (May 8, 2004)

Elfarmari said:


> I've never really understood English spelling, as in many cases it is completely un-phonetic....


The point is that it's not *meant* to be phonetic: it's not *all* about the way that words *sound* (the "phone" bit); it's *also* about what they *mean*.
No doubt that causes problems for people when they're learning how to say the words, but it's a big help for people who want to know where the words started at and how they got to mean what they mean now.


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## Lantarion (May 8, 2004)

So you think phonetic languages don't do that? That their history can't be sen from the way they are composed as well? It's all about perspective and knowledge; if I know that certain Finnish words are descended from Anglo-Saxon, which in turn is from the old Germanic tongues which is from the Indo-European language roots, then I can spot the resemblances just by looking at words. If I don't know what those languages that Finnish words are descended from look like, I can't really make a connection, can I? 

And also, English is such a hybrid of so many different languages it's almost frightening.. French, German, Latin, Greek at _least_! And many words aren't even loadwords, they're just words in a different language used in everyday speech; Frecnh words like _joi de vivre_ and _dejá vu_ for one, but take the word 'photograph'. As I understand it, the Greek form is 'photos'+'graphos'. That might still be considered a loadword, but it's amost identical. Words like the French ones above aren't loadwords, IMO, they are technical vocabulary terms.

But I think what makes the English language so poetic and flexible and beautiful is its lack of phoneticity.. So no complaints in actual fact from me, just pointing out of phonetical illogicalities.


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## Ireth Telrúnya (May 8, 2004)

English spelling can be different from the sounds produced, but compared with French it's not so different at all. I tried to study some French and thought that its spelling and pronunciation were more apart from each other than night and day! English is too familiar to me by now, and I've learned to spell it like I've read it. Though I'm not completely sure whether I can pronounce each word accurately...I try..anyway...I love the sound of this language! Each dialect I can discern..


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## joxy (May 9, 2004)

Lantarion said:


> So you think phonetic languages don't do that? That their history can't be sen from the way they are composed as well?


A phonetically written word can't give you a clue as to what language it came from, can it? The "ph"s in photograph tell us right away that it's from Greek. That's not a loan-word; it's a made-up word, a neologism, as much an English word now as anything much older. French expressions aren't loanwords either, they're still "foreign"; in fact they're not used all that much in ordinary conversation. There are, of course, any number of words that came from any number of languages - from everywhere, from "next door" in Wales to the native languages of Australia!
I'd be surprised if many - or any - Finnish words came direct from Anglo-Saxon, which was very much restricted in its area, but obviously the language would absorb numerous words of Indo-European origin from its many and various neighbours. How does it deal with words like that "photograph" - does it make up its own neologisms, or does it do the same and adapt from the "dead" languages?
I'm glad you actually like the variety in English, and the illogicality; it does make poetry easier, though I'm sure the Kalevala doesn't suffer by being written phonetically!
Ireth: That applies to you too; I'm glad you like the language. Where do you hear the dialects though? They are merging rapidly and few of *us* even notice them these days!


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## Lantarion (May 9, 2004)

Well I will admit that the composition of English makes it a lot _easier_ to trace its roots and/or origin, but e.g. Finnish is easy in a way too. Here is a descending line of origin of the Finnish word '_kaunis_', 'beautiful':

*kaunis* (Fin.)-[beautiful] < *skauniz* (root-Germanic)-[beautiful] < *skau-* (root-Germanic)-[visible, seeable] < *sque- / sqeu-* (Ind.-Eur. root)-[to notice]

If I had naturally known that the Indo-European root for 'to notice' was '_sque-_', I could also have deduced that the word '_kaunis_' was descended from it. Just as you knew that 'ph-' is a characteristic of Greek, you were able to link the word 'photography' to Greek origin.

And yes, very many words in Finnish are descended straight from Anglo-Saxon; as you may know, Finland was a part of the Swedish empire for centuries, and in that time the original Finnish native tongue was somewhat assimilated with Swedish (or rather, Swedish words were taken and made to fit the 'true' Finnish dialect (Finnish is actually a 'Fenno-Ugric' and part ancient Scandinavian tongue, not a Germanic one)). And Swedish is a direct descendant of Anglo-Saxon, as is English (for a large part). That is also why extremely many English words sound similar to Swedish ones, or vice versa.

Oh and to answer your question about Finnish with the example of 'photograph', Finnish creates its own neologisms (a fairly unknown word to me, hehe); just as 'photographos' means literally "light-picture", the Finnish word '*valokuva*' means just that.


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## joxy (May 9, 2004)

I'm very much an amateur at philology and entymology, and I guess you know more about it than I do, but I have to question some of those details:
Do the I-E "squ-" and Germ "skauniz" roots have descendants in present day Germanic languages as well as in Finnish?
You correctly refer to the close links between the Finnish and Swedish people, and then say that "Swedish is a direct descendant of Anglo-Saxon", which is quite impossible. Anglo-Saxon developed out of languages spoken in Northern Germany, and became a language spoken only within England; there was not the amount of contact betwen England and Sweden which could have resulted in it having any influence there.
The connections between present day Swedish and English are parallel, not serial in any way; the two have ultimate common "ancestors" but the former is not descended from an early version, Anglo-Saxon, of the latter. The vocabularies of the two actually have little in common.
The implication from this is that any words which appear in both English and Finnish are also derived from that ancient ancestor, rather than those in the latter being descended from Anglo-Saxon.
It's interesting to note that you developed your own word for the photograph; did the same happen with other inventions, such as television?!


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## Lantarion (May 9, 2004)

Oh goodness, you're probably right of course, about Swedish being directly descended from Ang-Sax..  But the similarities are so overriding that I suppose I wrongly assumed they were directly related.. And it isn't impossible, IMO, as navigation became more and more popular. And as I understand, the English language was affected greatly when the Vikings came and colonized some small parts of Britain..
Oh and I don't know about modern Germanic languages having descendants from 'skauniz' etc.. But there are many instances in Finnish fo this sort of correlation: e.g. the word 'king' is '*kuningas*' in Finnish, and '*kuningaz*' in 'Gothic'!

Ah, well no 'television' has not been translated.. But that is probably because it is such a modern, pop-culture term, much newer than 'photograph'. 
One word which comes to mind theoretically and very hypothitically is the English word 'screen'.. In Finnish one word for it is '*näyttö*', which really means 'shown, showing, observable evidence'; in this context it might be deduced that the word 'screen' is from the root _sque-/sqeu-_, wich meant almost the same thing!


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## Zale (May 11, 2004)

Despite the number of complaints about our wonderfully irregular language, notice that it is us who don't like learning foreign languages; foreign countries seem much keener to learn ours. Now, is that because English is wider-spoken than anything else? Or is that because it was easier for natives to learn English than it was for Imperial colonists to learn the native language?


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## Eledhwen (May 11, 2004)

I wonder how anyone can learn English as a second language - the language where 'fish' can be spelled 'ghoti' (an academic exercise only, in case anyone's worried).

Interesting you should mention 'television', Lantarion; as its origin in 'far-seeing' is the same as 'Palantir'.

What I don't like is the English habit of using 'ph' for 'f' when the word is of Greek origin. Do the Greeks use two letters? No! The only advantage is that philologists can easily spot that the word is Greek. Disadvantages include yet another hurdle for children to overcome when learning to spell. I also think that individual letters for th(is) and th(ink) should be assigned immediately, if not sooner (Eledhwen pauses to consider where they'd go on the keyboard).

Having said all that, I love my mother tongue! Illogical, mongrel language that it is; like all mongrels, it has the strength to endure.

Funny, I was just thinking today about how Irish folk and some North Westerners in England can't pronounce film as a single syllable - they have to say fillum. Now why was I thinking about that?


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## Lantarion (May 12, 2004)

Zale, I would say that wanting to learn foreign languages can't be categorized as a characteristic of one culture, and certainly not to a group as large as 'the English-speaking community' as you seem to imply, without obvious problems of generalization. Despite that though, I feel very inclined to say that about most American citizens, who have ben brought up with the conceot that the US is the greatest and that the English language is all they will ever need to survive in the world.. Which is true I suppose, but it certainly creates a huge lack of cultural insight and insight at the same time into the very nature of human thought (which languages are representatives of; don't make me quote Wittgenstein! ).


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## joxy (May 13, 2004)

Lantarion said:


> ....it certainly creates a huge lack of cultural insight and insight at the same time into the very nature of human thought (which languages are representatives of; don't make me quote Wittgenstein! ).


Yes, languages do reflect a way of thinking, which is a reason why one should learn a language not too similar to one's own! To speak Welsh, for example, requires one to adopt a quite different "mind-set" from that which one uses for its neighbour, English.
How does that old bore Wittgenstein come into it, by the way?!

I've been really stupid about the I-E "sque-"/p-G "skauniz" root; of course it comes down directly and little changed into modern German "schone". Your "beautiful" has lost the "s-" and kept the "-is", but otherwise the German word and yours are very close.

"Screen" is also Germanic, but its original reference was to something that separates things, a sort of barrier, something that prevents you from seeing something, or protects you from it.

Swedish and English really don't show "over-riding similarities" in respect of vocabulary. English is in the sub-group that includes German and Dutch, not in the one that includes the Scandinavian languages. The Vikings, who were from the area which is now the northeast of Germany, and from Norway to some extent, did leave us some of their vocabulary, but we already had a substantial basically Germanic language by that time. Of course the Romans had left their mark on it, and the Normans renewed that mark in due course!
Finnish contact with Germanic neighbours must indeed have resulted in absorption of some proto-Germanic vocabulary, as evidenced by that very extensive root "k-n-g" which gave you "kuningas" and us "king".

To Eledhwen I'd say that the convention of using two letters to represent one sound really isn't all that difficult to learn. There did indeed use to be two separate letters for the two "th" sounds, but people learned to live without them. "Ph" isn't really such a hassle either, is it?

I've always assumed that the tendency to pronounce two adjacent consonants distinctly, which produces the effect that sounds to you like introducing a vowel between them, as in fil-m, is a characteristic of speakers of Celtic languages, in which it is the norm. It's not a matter of being *unable* to pronounce them in the standard English way. I haven't noticed it as a characteristic of North West England, though I suppose there are descendants of Irish speakers there!


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## Lantarion (May 14, 2004)

joxy said:


> Yes, languages do reflect a way of thinking, which is a reason why one should learn a language not too similar to one's own! To speak Welsh, for example, requires one to adopt a quite different "mind-set" from that which one uses for its neighbour, English.
> How does that old bore Wittgenstein come into it, by the way?!


Oh I agree, and if indeed "the limits of my language are the limits of my world", the more languages I know the wider my limits are, right? 
Heh, Wittg. just came to my mind in relation to language and ways of thinking/perceiving the world. 


> Swedish and English really don't show "over-riding similarities" in respect of vocabulary


I'm sorry but I must correct you there. In fact, here is a little list (with the English word first, then Swedish):

king - kung
word - ord [pronounced 'oord']
worm - orm [orm = snake]
stone - sten
water - vatten
(to) see - se, ser
(to) spring - springa [springa = to run]
bloom - blom [blom = flower]
shoe - sko [pronounced 'shoo' or 'huu']

And let me tell you the list goes on, practically endlessly.. I am absolutely convinced that there is a connection between Swedish and English, one that is practically direct, otherwise I simply cannot account for these incredible similarities.


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## joxy (May 14, 2004)

As someone, who was famous at the time here, once said: "it depends on what you mean by" over-riding!
Thank you for the interesting list of examples. I agree, of course, that the words you quote have the same or similar meanings in Swedish and English, and I am sure there are many more such examples. It is only in the extent of all the examples, in comparison with other languages, that we disagree! As Swedish is the second language in Finland it is naturally the Germanic language - other than, of course, your excellent English! - which is the most familiar to you, making the connections immediately obvious.
I have to say though, that Swedish is actually one of the *least* connected to English of all the extant Germanic languages. These include, in a rough order of "closeness" to English: first, the Western group - Frisian, Flemish, Dutch, German; then the Northern group - Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Swedish, Faroese. A third group, headed by Gothic, died out completely, long ago, and all three groups descend from a common ancestor, Indo-European, which covered an enormous area. Swedish and English, then, are more-or-less distant cousins, with that common ancestor.
It is interesting that Swedish contains a large number of words that are not ultimately Germanic, and that is probably due to a factor you pointed out previously, that Sweden once ventured far out into the rest of Europe, and had an aggressive "foreign" policy, absorbing words as well as many other aspects of life as it went on its way!
The "Romance" languages, descended from Latin, and thus descended by a different route from Indo-European, show a much closer correlation of vocabulary than the Germanics do. From Portugal to Romania, you'll find people who share a large part of their vocabularies, in a way that is more striking than the comparisons within the Germanic group.
Unfortunately, Suomi doesn't have so many "cousins"; Eesti is maybe a first cousin, Sami rather more distant, and Magyar so far removed as to seem hardly one of the family at all!


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## Lantarion (May 15, 2004)

Well I am certainly dwarfed by your knowledge of linguistics, not much I can say to objectively argue against that! 
And I'm not saying I disagree that English and Swedish are very different languages, because they are, obvously so; a matter as common as verb conjugation is utterly different in each, for example, and the general 'language games' (as Wittgenstein puts it I think) and the cultural usage of the languages are also radically different. But despite this, I find it hard to believe that philologists and researchers would _not_ consider Swedish and English close cousins, because the vocabularies are, as I've pointed out, some 75% similar.

Haha, it's once again fun to see the word 'Suomi' (more properly '_suomen kieli_' ) from a non-Finn! And yes, Eesti and Saami are the immediate relatives of Finnish; Finnish doesn't have a lot of relatives because it's largely (as I understand it) a unique re-rendering of loadwords and descended roots (Swedish, Russian and Ancient Scandinavian being among the main affectors). Glad at least Tolkien found it beautiful enough to study it in depth!


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## Eledhwen (May 16, 2004)

I remember in primary school (many long years ago...) the teacher wrote a line from the Lord's prayer "Give us this day our daily bread" on the blackboard in Danish. Every child recognised it immediately, though none could speak the language.

And no, Joxy, learning combined letters for sounds wouldn't be much of a hassle if that was the only unnecessary (artificially introduced) complication in the English language; but it is one among many.


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## joxy (May 16, 2004)

Yes, Danish ranks well up the list for closeness to English; it's the closest in all the Northern group of Germanics.
If we didn't have combinations of letters, we'd have to have new letters or add dots and dashes to some of the present ones. Either way they would have to be learned, and that would be no easier than learning the combinations in the first place. Now that we all use keyboards, I think we have just about the right number of keys to be practical. Chinese children have had to learn thousands of characters for thousands of years; I don't see why it's all that much harder for ours to learn a few combinations!
Of course, *all* letters are "artificially introduced"; they don't grow on trees.


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## Eledhwen (May 17, 2004)

joxy said:


> Of course, *all* letters are "artificially introduced"; they don't grow on trees.


Call me a skeptic, but I belive that much of the double-letter spelling in English was introduced to keep the mystery of an academic elite. It didn't work, of course, because all sorts of formerly scientific terms have dropped down into common parlance. I only wish they'd left their spellings behind  . Personally, I have no difficulty, but friends with varying degrees of dyslexia could do without this stuff (and btw, who invented such a difficult word for that condition?  ).


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## joxy (May 17, 2004)

Dyslexia is a neat and useful word.
It means a difficulty in reading, like dyspepsia which is a difficulty in digesting.
Difficulty in reading isn't an adequate description of the condition though, as there's a lot more to it than difficulty in reading.
The one word covers both its literal meaning and the whole nature of the condition.
Having dyslexia isn't the same thing as having a reading difficulty.
So, what word can we derive to replace dyslexia, from strictly Anglo-Saxon roots?
And is fernseher really easier to write and to understand than television?  A far-seer could be someone with good eye-sight!


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## Eledhwen (May 19, 2004)

Television? I much prefer palantir.  though the one-eyed babysitter in the corner of my living room is much less romantic than the Middle-earth version.

Anyone qualified to take up joxy's dyslexia challenge then? I'm afraid my Greek's not good enough. Funny how when computer science became the province of 12 year olds and non-Oxbridge academics a couple of decades ago, the terminology that evolved was decidedly lacking in Greek and Latin (except for those derivatives already in common use).


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## joxy (May 20, 2004)

Eledhwen said:


> Television? I much prefer palantir.


And so do I.
I think it was the head of the BBC at the time, who said, when the word television was invented, that no good would come of it, because the word is a miscegenation of two diverse languages.
I think though, that if I were German, I would be prefer the hybrid foreigner "television" over the clumsy native "fernseher".
I hadn't thought of that before, that new computer jargon has ignored the classics. Is that really the case?


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