Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dora Smith" <villandra AT austin.rr.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
To: "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 17, 2004 4:54 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Re: variant pronunciation


> Dora and all,
>
> We would do well to remember that there is no such thing as a "correct"
> pronunciation - not of modern languages and certainly not of ancient ones.
> There are only traditions, shared by the users of a language, which enable
> them to comprehend each other.

A way to avoid all the illogic and idiosyncrasies of English spelling:



A large amount of typing errors are caused by 3 reasons:
1. Carelessness
2. Spelling differences across countries (e.g. color/colour)
3. Nonnative English speakers trying to cope with illogical spelling rules

I now strongly suggest we should try to simplify the language. To try and do
this in one attempt could be disastrous, so I think we should phase it in
over a 5 year period. My suggestions are as follows, and I hope you will
agree.

In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Sertainly,
sivil servants will reseive this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be
replased with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters
kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the
troublesome "ph" will be replased by "f". This will make words like
"fotograf" 20 per sent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to
reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. We will
enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always been a deterent
to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is
disgraful, and they would go.

By the forth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" by
"z" and "w" by "v".

During ze fifz year ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou"
, so Soup will then be known as Sup and similar changes vud of kors be aplid
to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz year, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor
trobls or difikultis and evrivum vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze
drem vil finali kum tru.

------------------------------------------------

Come on, folks.  I insist on knowing the actual pronounciation rules of a
language atleast long enough to learn how to speak and read it!

If zen ve vant to hav no aktval rel ruls ov pronunsatun, vy, go to it!

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, Texas
villandra AT austin.rr.com