Post by @fushuan@lemmy.blahaj.zone

@fushuan@lemmy.blahaj.zone

2026-11-04 01:11 UTC

it would only work for a few generations at most until sound change and dialect divergence built up enough to once again strongly divorce spelling from pronunciation. As a Spaniard this is bonkers. We have dialects but everyone is taught how each letter sounds and that hasn’t changed in a long while. Even when there have been changed, there’s a central institution that records them. Our language is consistent withing it’s ruleset. It’s crazy how inconsistent English is. Just don’t change the sounds each letters do, why is it so hard?? It’s so weird. If someone wants to pronounce a word differently (not shorten, just straight up different) hit’em with a stick and yell them to speak properly at school. Ffs.

Replies (1)

@hakase@lemmy.zip 2026-11-04 03:53

This comment shows an ignorance of how language works. As a Spaniard you should know that a) Spanish is one of the most diverse modern languages, and b) it has seen a large number of structural changes in both pronunciation and grammar since even Early Modern Spanish. Spanish spelling also follows general etymological principles, and has similar inconsistencies with English for the same reasons. Languages don’t care whether there’s a “central institution”, because language is an emergent human behavior that is constantly negotiated between speakers, and so we will continue to see exactly the same sort of divergence of arbitrary orthographic practices from pronunciation that we see in English, along with all of the already-existing dialectal differences. It’s crazy how inconsistent English is. Just don’t change the sounds each letters do, why is it so hard?? It’s so weird. If someone wants to pronounce a word differently (not shorten, just straight up different) hit’em with a stick and yell them to speak properly at school. Ffs. /c/badlinguistics

Open ##5508647