ph, ch, th and double consonants

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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby linguoboy » 2022-05-16, 21:00

Woods wrote:
linguoboy wrote:Have you seen how politely he phrased that? "...that you might be arrogant, perhaps paying attention...could give you a better insight..." I really don't see how he could have done much more to soften his point.

It's the intention, not the words.

His intention was to be polite but firm; that's why he chose the words he did. He wasn't trying to hurt you or insult you so why are you acting like you've been hurt or insulted?

Woods wrote:
linguoboy wrote:You're doing exactly what you accuse everyone else of--selectively quoting and ignoring the real content of their objections.

I don't say that somebody said something he didn't say or meant something he didn't mean, or insinuate this in my jokes, or call them arrogant for thinking otherwise to me.

You literally just did that: You're claiming people are deliberately being mean or trying to insult you when they're not. They're just disagreeing with you.

For the last time: No one is calling you "arrogant" because you "think differently"; they are calling you "arrogant" because you are behaving arrogantly. Each of us in turn has tried to explain why your behaviour appears arrogant even if that's not what you intend. You just don't want to accept the possibility so you conclude you're being slandered.

I'm going to quote this explanation from Linguaphile because I'm wondering if you even read it, let alone tried to understand what she was saying:
This isn't about calling you arrogant. This is about explaining how people view their own languages and how they view changes that come from others, and the concept of arrogance is inevitably a significant (and at this point in the discussion, unavoidable) part of that which is important to understand. I couldn't find a way to explain that point in any better way than quoting sa wulfs, who is a native speaker. Languages belong to their speakers. You're not a speaker of Spanish. Even myself, I'm not a native speaker of Spanish either. We're not the ones whose opinions matter most in this discussion. It's as simple as that, and if you go back through what I said with that in mind, you might understand my posts in a different way.

Depending on the circumstances, telling other people what they should do may or may not be arrogant. Telling them what they should do when they didn't ask you and they know far more about the subject they you is the textbook definition of arrogance.
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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby Woods » 2022-05-16, 21:43

Linguaphile wrote:No, that is not what I'm saying. You are still missing the point we're trying to make. Read again what I said before I quoted sa wulfs:
Linguaphile wrote:Besides, a lot of people are pretty proud of those differences

Okay, I accept that.

But the original quote, with the parts of it you selected, starts with "frankly it's quite arrogant that..."


Linguaphile wrote:When someone wants to make a change, it's useful to try to understand how that change will be received. I think you missed that.

No, I haven't. It was part of my questions. And sa wulfs gave good feedback on that - in the beginning, before anyone had called anyone arrogant.


Linguaphile wrote:Languages belong to their speakers.

Yes. But do all speakers have equal rights to them? I heard you say that natives are more privileged. I think it would be more fair if you lower the bar just a little - for example, to everyone who has mastered the language to a certain level, let's say C1 or C2?

And that doesn't exclude illiterates like me from making suggestions or theorising on what would happen if a certain feature is introduced in a language they don't know, or have an attitude to certain features of certain languages regardless if they use them or not. Like I will always think that certain features of Macedonian or Norwegian are ridiculous, or hate how Swedish ridicules French words no matter what. That does not make me arrogant.


Linguaphile wrote:This is about explaining how people view their own languages and how they view changes that come from others, and the concept of arrogance is inevitably a significant (and at this point in the discussion, unavoidable) part of that which is important to understand.

Nope, that's calling people names when you run out of arguments or when you get upset with yourself for not being able to convince that person (applies whether you're wrong or right).


Linguaphile wrote:And again, the more important point is the one you've stopped addressing at all: the idea that changing Spanish spelling to reflect Greek digraphs in the way English and French (and sometimes German) do would somehow help people learn more languages to C1 level. That's the whole point of this discussion, isn't it? But the logic behind that claim still isn't clear to me, I disagree with it in the sense that I don't believe it would achieve this goal, and it's a point you've stopped addressing.

For several reasons:

- I don't want to repeat myself

- You don't care

- I don't have anything more to say (indefinitely or just yet - I don't know)

You may think you have disproven my theory or defended Spanish speakers' holy right to write their language as they please, but first of all you don't have any objective proof which I can recognise that adopting the same spelling convention for a subset of Greek words which entered Spanish through Latin wouldn't help improve accessibility to this languages for speakers of other languages and to those languages for speakers of Spanish, and second I have never denied those people's right to still write as they prefer, so I don't understand why so many people saw my suggestion as such a threat!

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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby linguoboy » 2022-05-16, 21:52

Woods wrote:You may think you have disproven my theory or defended Spanish speakers' holy right to write their language as they please, but first of all you don't have any objective proof which I can recognise that adopting the same spelling convention for a subset of Greek words which entered Spanish through Latin wouldn't help improve accessibility to this languages for speakers of other languages and to those languages for speakers of Spanish

She doesn't have to. The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that such a change would be helpful, not on her (or anyone else) to prove that it would not. This is Argumentation 101. If you don't understand how it works, then it's no wonder we've all been spinning our wheels here.

Woods wrote:I have never denied those people's right to still write as they prefer, so I don't understand why so many people saw my suggestion as such a threat!

I never saw it as a "threat" because I never saw it as having the slightest chance of being adopted. I think you are seeing defensiveness in people's reactions which simply isn't there.
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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby Woods » 2022-05-18, 8:12

linguoboy wrote:
Woods wrote:You may think you have disproven my theory or defended Spanish speakers' holy right to write their language as they please, but first of all you don't have any objective proof which I can recognise that adopting the same spelling convention for a subset of Greek words which entered Spanish through Latin wouldn't help improve accessibility to this languages for speakers of other languages and to those languages for speakers of Spanish

She doesn't have to. The burden of proof is on you

Why? Do I have an obligation to prove that or something? I'm making a suggestion and stating my own opinion. I don't owe anyone any explanations about it. I do not demand Spanish speakers stop writing the way they do or have any authority to do so. Whoever wants to discuss my idea is welcome, whoever doesn't like it it's their problem, I think it's a good one maybe it's not, maybe it's a wonderful one you just don't get it or maybe it's a horrible one and I'm the one who doesn't see that. In any case it makes more sense for me to say what I think than to agree with someone I disagree with - and that without calling anyone arrogant or changing the meaning of their words.

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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby sa wulfs » 2022-05-18, 11:33

If you have a problem with being called arrogant, then don't say super arrogant stuff like this:
And here I would also argue that it is people who have shown some good ability in learning languages that would have a good perspective and not the average speaker of one or maximum two languages. I mean, the ones who are not good at something should learn from the ones who are and not vice versa, isn't it so?

I mentioned the benefit of the language using the same spelling convention as its related languages, as well as some other benefits, but it would feel a little bit stupid to go back and repeat them, once I already have.

I was actually going through Instituto Cervantes's curriculum for learning Spanish from A1 to C2 for an hour today and at the end I just concluded that even though I can't speak it, I already know this language (I mean I get 95% of what is written without having ever studied Spanish in my life), so it would be a waste of time; better to study something different - like Chinese or Arabic or Finnish.
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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-05-18, 13:04

Woods wrote:
Linguaphile wrote:No, that is not what I'm saying. You are still missing the point we're trying to make. Read again what I said before I quoted sa wulfs:
Linguaphile wrote:Besides, a lot of people are pretty proud of those differences

Okay, I accept that.

But the original quote, with the parts of it you selected, starts with "frankly it's quite arrogant that..."

Yes, exactly, it did. It was part of what I was saying; it's an example of the reaction you'll get from people when people are "pretty proud of those differences" that make their language unique and you suggest erasing them. Without that part it wouldn't be an accurate quote or make that point. I feel like you're dismissing this aspect as irrelevant, but I'm not saying it to attack you, I've saying it because it's a significant factor in language change and therefore extremely relevant in this discussion.
I think you must be aware of these factors at least to some extent because you asked about something similar in your first post in this thread: "Were there any authors refusing to implement the reforms that removed these things from Spanish orthography?" You were told that there weren't many; at that time it was a change that was largely accepted. It made Spanish orthography better conform to spoken Spanish and it helped distinguish Spanish from its neighbors. I imagine people supported that. The changes you are suggesting, however, aren't that kind of change. Do you see how they are different? It wouldn't surprise me that if the RAE were to propose adding Greek digraphs back, there would be some authors refusing to implement the reforms, even though the RAE is a well-accepted authority. And for sure, if you implement these changes on your own in your own writing, there will be people who view it as arrogance.

Woods wrote:And that doesn't exclude illiterates like me from making suggestions or theorising on what would happen if a certain feature is introduced in a language they don't know, or have an attitude to certain features of certain languages regardless if they use them or not. Like I will always think that certain features of Macedonian or Norwegian are ridiculous, or hate how Swedish ridicules French words no matter what. That does not make me arrogant.

Having the opinions doesn't make you arrogant. Asking questions doesn't make you arrogant. Making suggestions and listening to feedback doesn't make you arrogant. And that's why the comments about arrogance didn't appear in the first posts in this thread, when you were just asking questions. But dismissing the feedback, including feedback from native and fluent speakers, and insisting that your ideas are better than those of all fluent or native speakers (not just those here), is arrogant. Claiming that you already know Spanish because you know French and English is also arrogant. You are basically dismissing what makes Spanish "Spanish" while claiming you already know everything you need to know. It's absolutely an arrogant attitude. Can't you see how its speakers might take that badly?

Woods wrote:I do not demand Spanish speakers stop writing the way they do or have any authority to do so.

And no one has the authority to make you spell Spanish correctly, so use the Greek digraphs where ever and whenever you please. But be aware that in Spanish, without an explanation, they'll be viewed as misspellings, and with your explanation, they'll be viewed as a sign of arrogance. Consistently. It's obvious that being called arrogant is something that bothers you greatly, so it seems important to point out that this is an attitude you'll keep seeing if you continue suggesting these spelling changes or using them in your own writing (if you ever write in Spanish) on the basis that your spelling is better than the currently-accepted on.

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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby linguoboy » 2022-05-18, 16:01

Woods wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
Woods wrote:You may think you have disproven my theory or defended Spanish speakers' holy right to write their language as they please, but first of all you don't have any objective proof which I can recognise that adopting the same spelling convention for a subset of Greek words which entered Spanish through Latin wouldn't help improve accessibility to this languages for speakers of other languages and to those languages for speakers of Spanish

She doesn't have to. The burden of proof is on you

Why? Do I have an obligation to prove that or something? I'm making a suggestion and stating my own opinion. I don't owe anyone any explanations about it. I do not demand Spanish speakers stop writing the way they do or have any authority to do so. Whoever wants to discuss my idea is welcome, whoever doesn't like it it's their problem, I think it's a good one maybe it's not, maybe it's a wonderful one you just don't get it or maybe it's a horrible one and I'm the one who doesn't see that. In any case it makes more sense for me to say what I think than to agree with someone I disagree with - and that without calling anyone arrogant or changing the meaning of their words.

If you're not willing to provide evidence to back up your opinions, then you're not interested in having an actual discussion, end of story. It's ridiculous for you to complain that Linguaphile hasn't provided "objective proof" to support her assertions when you haven't either. I honestly can't believe I need to point this out.
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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby Woods » 2022-05-18, 21:38

Linguaphile wrote:I feel like you're dismissing this aspect as irrelevant, but I'm not saying it to attack you, I've saying it because it's a significant factor in language change and therefore extremely relevant

No - like you're explaining it it's fine. But it's not how it's understood when you write "here's what I couldn't agree more with: quote: it is very arrogant of you to..."

It seems like sa wulfs is going to keep calling me arrogant instead of apologising, but that's fine - we don't have to keep talking.

For me this way of talking is arrogance and stupidity, but whoever wants can also blame this opinion of mine on my arrogance and keep using insults.


Linguaphile wrote:dismissing the feedback, including feedback from native and fluent speakers, and insisting that your ideas are better than those of all fluent or native speakers (not just those here), is arrogant

Uh? I'm defending my ideas cause I still think they're good, how does that make me arrogant? Who said I'm dismissing anyone's feedback? It's not for nothing that I called some of you on bad vibes and bad temper cause there were some rather aggressive reactions that were completely unfounded, and I'm surprised that nobody said yeah, you're right - I shouldn't have said it that way.


Linguaphile wrote:Claiming that you already know Spanish because you know French and English is also arrogant.

No, it's not. If you understand it how I said it and to mean how I meant it, there isn't anything arrogant about it. This conversation is getting ridiculous. I really don't see how a well-mannered person could call another person arrogant just like that for something completely obvious - when you know French, claiming that you understand 95% of the Spanish you just read is perfectly possible. If you read it again, you will see there's nothing arrogant about it. However, calling people arrogant for something like that is arrogant. (not calling you arrogant here, just telling you what I think and having in mind the people who called me arrogant)


Linguaphile wrote:You are basically dismissing what makes Spanish "Spanish" while claiming you already know everything you need to know.

You're putting words in my mouth that I never said by claiming I claim I know everything I need to know.


Linguaphile wrote:It's obvious that being called arrogant is something that bothers you greatly

Not in the slightest when it's well-founded, but yes it does when it's somebody's subjective appreciation and said in a way which I consider arrogant.


Linguaphile wrote: this is an attitude you'll keep seeing if you continue suggesting these spelling changes or using them in your own writing

It's part of life, and sometimes it's inevitable. Sometimes you've got to do things people don't understand and disagree with. That being said, I haven't decided to do such a thing when writing Spanish or even to learn Spanish yet. It was just a good idea of mine, I think. If you go back, you will even see sa wulfs say "I think it's a cool idea too" - that wasn't the reason he called me arrogant.

On that same note, I've noticed in the past that you seem to expect people to conform with whatever is generally accepted or what you think. I told you that I do things in the opposite way. Yes, it is annoying when people start calling you arrogant; but I'm not going to change the way I do things unless I think I should.


linguoboy wrote:
Woods wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
Woods wrote:You may think you have disproven my theory or defended Spanish speakers' holy right to write their language as they please, but first of all you don't have any objective proof which I can recognise that adopting the same spelling convention for a subset of Greek words which entered Spanish through Latin wouldn't help improve accessibility to this languages for speakers of other languages and to those languages for speakers of Spanish

She doesn't have to. The burden of proof is on you

Why? Do I have an obligation to prove that or something? I'm making a suggestion and stating my own opinion. I don't owe anyone any explanations about it. I do not demand Spanish speakers stop writing the way they do or have any authority to do so. Whoever wants to discuss my idea is welcome, whoever doesn't like it it's their problem, I think it's a good one maybe it's not, maybe it's a wonderful one you just don't get it or maybe it's a horrible one and I'm the one who doesn't see that. In any case it makes more sense for me to say what I think than to agree with someone I disagree with - and that without calling anyone arrogant or changing the meaning of their words.

If you're not willing to provide evidence to back up your opinions, then you're not interested in having an actual discussion

If I have evidence I'll gladly give it, however this started as a few simple questions and I have not come here with tons of research in hypothetical social science to fight for change in the spelling of a language I don't even know.


linguoboy wrote:It's ridiculous for you to complain that Linguaphile hasn't provided "objective proof" to support her assertions when you haven't either.

Nothing ridiculous - you're just taking it out of your own context: she said I hadn't proven mine, I said you haven't proven yours either, you said you gotta prove yours she doesn't, I answered you. Do you think arguing about this makes any sense for real?

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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby linguoboy » 2022-05-18, 21:56

Woods wrote:
linguoboy wrote:It's ridiculous for you to complain that Linguaphile hasn't provided "objective proof" to support her assertions when you haven't either.

Nothing ridiculous - you're just taking it out of your own context: she said I hadn't proven mine, I said you haven't proven yours either, you said you gotta prove yours she doesn't, I answered you.

It's not taken out of context. The context is a discussion where you are arguing for a proposition and making claims in support of it. By the rules of argumentation generally followed in the Western world, this puts the burden of proof on you to back up those claims. Again, this is literally Argumentation 101. If you can't grasp this principle, it's going to be very difficult to have good-faith discussions with you going forward.

Woods wrote:Do you think arguing about this makes any sense for real?

I don't think arguing about your original proposition does. I think this meta-discussion is important because it's going to affect other's willingness to engage you here. If you want us to engage with your ideas, you need to learn to present and defend them in a way different to what you've been doing so far.
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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby Woods » 2022-05-18, 22:29

linguoboy wrote:The context is a discussion where you are arguing for a proposition and making claims in support of it. By the rules of argumentation generally followed in the Western world, this puts the burden of proof on you to back up those claims.

Conclusion: I can do better to support my thesis and I took note of that.

However, there's no obligation to provide proof once you state something or to agree with whatever your opponent says just because you haven't provided them with sufficient proof or only with a hypothesis.

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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-05-18, 22:31

Woods wrote:
Linguaphile wrote:I feel like you're dismissing this aspect as irrelevant, but I'm not saying it to attack you, I've saying it because it's a significant factor in language change and therefore extremely relevant

No - like you're explaining it it's fine. But it's not how it's understood when you write "here's what I couldn't agree more with: quote: it is very arrogant of you to..."

I don't see how what I've done is much different from what sa wulfs did, so it surprises me that you say that.
We're just going in circles. You've obviously made up your mind, and since it seems you don't plan on learning Spanish, and none of us can change orthography, I don't really understand why it matters what you (or any of us) think about its spelling.
The only reason to continue would be to help you see why it sounds arrogant or how you can better present or defend your ideas, as Linguoboy suggested. You asked some questions related to that, like "how does that make me arrogant? Who said I'm dismissing anyone's feedback?". But I get the impression they were rhetorical questions that you don't want anyone to try to answer or that you want someone to answer only so you can argue with them about it some more. I think you've made up your mind on that too.

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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby Woods » 2022-05-18, 22:50

linguoboy wrote:...

PS I had a look on your Wikipedia article and I'm not sure what that is - a set of recommendations for a convincing demonstration of ideas defined by philosophers? It's not even mentioned who created that "standard" ; there's something about the "burden of proof" in American law - of which I have no idea if it's codified somewhere or expected by custom (and it's not mentioned in the article just like they haven't mentioned where the philosophical concept came from) ; also something about statistics which I didn't read.

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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby Woods » 2022-05-18, 23:01

Linguaphile wrote:
Woods wrote:
Linguaphile wrote:I feel like you're dismissing this aspect as irrelevant, but I'm not saying it to attack you, I've saying it because it's a significant factor in language change and therefore extremely relevant

No - like you're explaining it it's fine. But it's not how it's understood when you write "here's what I couldn't agree more with: quote: it is very arrogant of you to..."

I don't see how what I've done is much different from what sa wulfs did, so it surprises me that you say that.

Well, to start with when I called you out on it you explained that you didn't mean it that way, while he replied "if you don't like being called arrogant then this and that" - which I myself considered very arrogant.


Linguaphile wrote:since it seems you don't plan on learning Spanish, and none of us can change orthography, I don't really understand why it matters what you (or any of us) think about its spelling.

You never know. I'd still like to see a world where people speak freely more languages and I think the presence of too many spelling conventions for the same words is a hindrance to that. I will provide you with proof or a better demonstration if I have it (provided that I am not called arrogant in the meantime, which might discourage me from doing it.)

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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby linguoboy » 2022-05-19, 14:59

Woods wrote:
linguoboy wrote:...

PS I had a look on your Wikipedia article and I'm not sure what that is - a set of recommendations for a convincing demonstration of ideas defined by philosophers? It's not even mentioned who created that "standard" ; there's something about the "burden of proof" in American law - of which I have no idea if it's codified somewhere or expected by custom (and it's not mentioned in the article just like they haven't mentioned where the philosophical concept came from) ; also something about statistics which I didn't read.

Philosophers have tried, among other things, to codify the rules we use when arguing about the truth. We all use these rules, whether we're aware of them or not; they just make them explicit so they can talk about how exactly they should be formulated and which rules should be applied in which situations. The term (and probably the concept) of "burden of proof" originates with common law, which is why this article mentions that. If you want to know more about how that came about, there's an entire separate article on the legal concept.

Is this really the first time you've encountred the term or the idea that when someone is making a proposal, it's up to them to provide evidence that their proposal will actually accomplish its stated purpose? Because if so, that would explain a lot.
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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby Woods » 2022-05-19, 20:49

linguoboy wrote:Philosophers have tried, among other things, to codify the rules we use when arguing about the truth. We all use these rules, whether we're aware of them or not; they just make them explicit so they can talk about how exactly they should be formulated and which rules should be applied in which situations. The term (and probably the concept) of "burden of proof" originates with common law, which is why this article mentions that. If you want to know more about how that came about, there's an entire separate article on the legal concept.

Is this really the first time you've encountred the term or the idea that when someone is making a proposal, it's up to them to provide evidence that their proposal will actually accomplish its stated purpose? Because if so, that would explain a lot.

People argue all the time about all kinds of things with all kinds of proof - objective, subjective or lack thereof.

The concept of "burden of proof" that you are mentioning is a well-formulated one; but no one is in the position to provide evidence for every challenge that one gives against their idea, and that's not a reason to give it up or to accept the other person's views if they don't provide convincing arguments either.

The evidence that you are asking for is will also always be loose one. Let's try:

German speakers are most certainly not less literate than Spanish speakers, so introducing Greek digraphs into someone's native language does not have any negative effects on literacy levels.

Spanish children are probably more likely to be able to learn how to read the letters without schooling than German kids, because there are no Greek digraphs.

Which of those is more relevant to whether or not using Greek digraphs in more languages will make it easier to be fluent in more languages?

If I make a hundred studies in fifty counties involving thousands of people and each of them tilts the balance in one direction, the results will still be relative and can easily be dismissed, just like a small-scale example, which you would call ableist, could be applied to a larger population which includes dyslexics.

I actually got curious about the dyslexics because I suspect I might have taught English to one person who might have been dyslexic. However, as said earlier his unmatched lack of seriousness is enough for me to dismiss any problems he might have had which might have made it more difficult to spell English. If I have the chance, I would like to teach a dyslexic person to spell better than a native with a doctor's degree in literature and show you why I take it badly when one calls believing in people's abilities ableist.

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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-05-19, 22:32

When talking about the number of languages people learn, or the literacy rates in different countries, there's lots of information out there. For example:

Image

Image

Top dozen:
Luxembourg (3.6 & 4)
Netherlands (3.2 & 3)
Slovenia (3 & 3)
Denmark (2.8 & 3)
Estonia (2.7 & 2.5)
Latvia (2.7 & 2.5)
Lithuania (2.7 & 2.5)
Finland (2.6 & 2.5)
Belgium (2.6 & 2.5)
Slovakia (2.5 & 2)
Sweden (2.5 & 2)
Austria (2.2 & 2)

Others mentioned earlier in this thread, for comparison:
Germany (2.0 & 2)
France (1.8 & 1.5)
Spain (1.7 & 1.5)
UK (1.6 & 1)

Literacy difficulties in Europe:
Image
Ranked by percentage of adults with literacy difficulties:
Italy 27.9
Spain 27.7
France 21.7
Poland 18.8
Germany 17.8
Ireland 17.5
UK 16.6
Denmark 15.8
Austria 15.6
Belgium 14.8
Sweden 13.3
Estonia 13.1
Norway 12.5
Czechia 11.9
Netherlands 11.9
Slovakia 11.7
Finland 10.6

Of course, there are a lot of factors influencing these statistics - certainly not just features of the native language itself. Influencing literacy: educational systems, poverty levels, level of literacy required for workforce, etc. Influencing number of languages spoken: number of native languages that are official or frequently used in the country, number of non-native speakers of the country's language elsewhere, do educational systems and workforce require multilingualism, etc.

What do I notice about this? Some countries whose languages aren't related to most other languages of Europe (and which have a strong sound-symbol correspondence in orthography) have high levels of multilingualism - Finland, Estonia. Is it because of features of these languages? No, probably not; it's probably because few people elsewhere learn their languages, so they learn others' languages (plus, Finland has both Finnish and Swedish, and Estonia has a large Russian-speaking population in addition to Estonian). Luxembourg, at the top of the list for number of languages, has three administrative languages and is a highly multilingual country, not because of features of its languages or their orthographies, but because of other factors.
I also notice that among the countries with high rates of literacy difficulties there are countries with both transparent and opaque orthographies. It would be easy for me to jump to the conclusion that the UK fairs so poorly because English has a difficult orthography, but Spanish does worse than English on the literacy metric and not much better than English for multilingualism. Actually a very major reason for lack of multilingualism among English speakers is simply because so many people elsewhere know English; learning other languages is viewed as less necessary for English-speakers who want to communicate with speakers of other languages, because chances are often good those other speakers will know English.

My conclusion: it seems there isn't much of a correlation between etymological spelling systems and literacy and/or multilingualism, and, if we were to do a deeper statistical analysis with more reliable data, it seems that whatever weak correlation we'd find would likely be a negative one. Most likely orthography plays only a small part in the level of multilingualism and literacy. The orthography of a small subset of words - Greek loans that contain digraphs borrowed through Latin - most likely is a tiny part, like a drop of water in the ocean. Changing it would complicate (in a small way) a system that is otherwise working well as it is, but have little to no impact on your stated goal. Aside from making it (slightly) more difficult to spell Spanish, it would also mean changing a lot of people's current "habits" regarding spelling Spanish, and a lot of materials that have been printed which would either need to be changed or people would still need to know the "old" (current) system in order to read them, in addition to the "new" (proposed) system. That's a lot of trouble for very little benefit.

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Woods
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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby Woods » 2022-05-20, 10:48

Europe just strikes me from the start with the data you provided. Even with Sweden, which has the largest amount of immigrants of any country - assuming that a large proportion of the population is bilingual at birth and everyone learns English - the average number of languages spoken is still 2,6. You are a smart person with a deep interest in languages and you have learnt three. It is really not that easy. With policies such as separating our language from another one on purpose (Norwegian etc.) and creating new kinds of spelling conventions, we are making our languages less compatible and less accessible for each other. You wanted proof - think about the fact that many times this division was actually made on purpose. Asking for it to be corrected later on, which you would most certainly stand against, is actually asking to mend injustice.

Nonetheless, I don't see how this data will be correct. I've spent a lot of time in Denmark and I have almost never met anyone being able to speak anything else besides Danish and English. Yes, they also have a little bit of mandatory German in school, but no one seems to get to the point where they can have a conversation in it.

I'm not sure what exactly you're trying to prove with this data. It is exactly the kind of social science that I was talking about - no matter what you find out with these already subjective findings, you can interpret it to mean whatever you want. For example, I can point out that according to the figures that you've quoted, Spanish people are more illiterate than French people (27,7% having difficulties vs. 21,7%), and that in spite of French having not only the digraphs, but also one of the most conservative and in some regards awful writing systems. Or actually, I'm pretty sure that keeping the digraphs helps increase literacy levels as the data shows!

Linguaphile wrote:What do I notice about this? Some countries whose languages aren't related to most other languages of Europe (and which have a strong sound-symbol correspondence in orthography) have high levels of multilingualism - Finland, Estonia.

Now you're doing exactly what I just did but in the opposite direction. But no, Finnish being spelt phonetically does not help learn foreign languages - quite the opposite, it makes it harder to teach French, and Swedish makes things even worse. I would say that there are no benefits of reinventing spelling to make it more phonetic in regards to a certain language besides making it a tiny bit easier to learn for people who don't speak other languages, but definitely no benefits for people who already know how to write these words in another language. Like to tell me that I would be able to learn Swedish more easily because it rewrites French words in an arbitrarily phonetic way is just nonsense. And to argue that this doesn't make Swedish less accessible for speakers of other languages, also doesn't make sense. It is strikingly obvious that those spelling conventions were made at times where literacy levels were low and it was a luxury to learn to write even one's own language. Now times are different, and it should be done justice to the bad spelling decisions made by some kings with bad taste for language.


Linguaphile wrote:The orthography of a small subset of words - Greek loans that contain digraphs borrowed through Latin - most likely is a tiny part, like a drop of water in the ocean.

However, it's part of our culture. Taking it away is like tearing down a centuries-old building to build a skyscraper, saying the former is too old and less practical. When you do so, this is no longer the same city and something substantial is lost.


Linguaphile wrote:Aside from making it (slightly) more difficult to spell Spanish, it would also mean changing a lot of people's current "habits" regarding spelling Spanish, and a lot of materials that have been printed which would either need to be changed or people would still need to know the "old" (current) system in order to read them, in addition to the "new" (proposed) system.

No changing of materials, please - if people have written in a certain way for two centuries, of course future generations should know about that; it remains part of the language and there is no need to reprint anything. And saying that they will also need to learn how to read the current way on top of the new way is like me saying that now they need to learn to read the old way, which included the digraphs, in order to read whatever was printed before the reform. No difference - languages change and to think that the current spelling of Spanish will remain as it is forever makes no sense. But thinking that orthography should only be modified to become more phonetic and less etymological is also a horrible way of thinking, in my opinion.

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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-05-20, 12:58

Woods wrote:
Linguaphile wrote:What do I notice about this? Some countries whose languages aren't related to most other languages of Europe (and which have a strong sound-symbol correspondence in orthography) have high levels of multilingualism - Finland, Estonia.

Now you're doing exactly what I just did but in the opposite direction. But no, Finnish being spelt phonetically does not help learn foreign languages - quite the opposite, it makes it harder to teach French, and Swedish makes things even worse. I would say that there are no benefits of reinventing spelling to make it more phonetic in regards to a certain language besides making it a tiny bit easier to learn for people who don't speak other languages, but definitely no benefits for people who already know how to write these words in another language. Like to tell me that I would be able to learn Swedish more easily because it rewrites French words in an arbitrarily phonetic way is just nonsense. And to argue that this doesn't make Swedish less accessible for speakers of other languages, also doesn't make sense....

Wow, talk about selective quoting, Woods! What you quoted from me was just an objective fact about something that can be noticed on the map. After that particular sentence that you quoted, I literally said that despite noticing this, I thought there was likely to be little to no significant correlation to orthography, based on the rest of the data (including what you pointed out for Spanish, which I pointed out as well) and based on other known reasons for multilingualism, and explained why.

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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby sa wulfs » 2022-05-20, 14:05

K I updated the list of people Woods* knows better than:
  1. native speakers
  2. native linguists
  3. educational psychologists specializing in dyslexia
  4. several millennia's worth of philosophers
  5. the Special Eurobarometer 386 team

*not arrogant
http://ungelicisus.blogspot.com
Hrōþabaírhts sa Wulfs | Hrōðbeorht se Wulf | Hróðbjartr Úlfrinn | Hruodperaht der Wolf | Hrôthberht thê Wulf

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Woods
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Re: ph, ch, th and double consonants

Postby Woods » 2022-05-20, 14:56

Linguaphile wrote:Wow, talk about selective quoting, Woods! What you quoted from me was just an objective fact about something that can be noticed on the map. After that particular sentence that you quoted, I literally said that despite noticing this, I thought there was likely to be little to no significant correlation to orthography, based on the rest of the data

I did read the rest you wrote though, don't worry - and even thought 'hey she's actually not emphasising this in particular, should I remove what I just wrote,' but then what I wrote already made sense anyway so I decided to leave it :)


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