German Reform?

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"3000 are probably enough to read everything in Japanese"-Xie

Probably, but you still need the other writing systems to fill out the sentence (hiragana and katakana).

*Lions were "confirmed" to have existed while Zhang Qian was on the way on the Silk Road. Chinese wikipedia says it was named after the Persian name for it.

<<They write poetry on their menus, and particularly in higher-class restaurants, but they never write clearly on the bills.>>

Wonderful!

Thanks Xie, for your answer.

There must be some ''official'' kind of chinese shorthand, at least that was my impression on that short part of film I saw.

http://www.sprachforschung.org/index.php?show=news&id=599

Guest Mon Jul 14, 2008 1:03 am GMT:

<<I would like to know more about it, are they actually changing the spelling? when do they start? any examples? etc.>>

I found a short timeline on the course of the reform in this thread:

http://www.sprachforschung.org/index.php?show=news&id=599#7179

1996 attack-like introduction of the reform, no field test to check for possible errors

1996 Duden dictionary edition No. 21

1996-2000 inofficial repair work behind the scenes, therefore:

2000 Duden dictionary edition No. 22

2004 further repair and first official revision with new spelling rules

2004 Duden dictionary edition No. 23

2004 Sacking of the ''Zwischenstaatliche Kommission'' (inter state committee) and establishment of the ''Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung''
(RfdR, german orthography council)

2006 proposals of that council lead to futher repair and to the second official revision, again with new spelling rules

2006 Duden dictionary edition No. 24

2008 Mr. Zehetmair from RfdR announces further possible changes

(Mr. Zehetmair was on of the ministers of education responsible for the reform.)

correction: (Mr. Zehetmair was one of the ministers of education responsible for the reform.)

http://www.sprachforschung.org/index.php?show=news&id=599#7239

http://www.sprachforschung.org/index.php?show=news&id=600

America too had got and overcome spelling reform illness:

http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.15682/article_detail.asp

http://www.sprachforschung.org/index.php?show=news&id=185#7309

Kommentar von The Economist print edition, Aug 14th 2008, verfaßt am 15.08.2008 um 18.27 Uhr
Adresse: http://www.sprachforschung.org/index.php?show=news&id=185#7309:

English spelling
You write potato, I write ghoughpteighbteau
The rules need updating, not scrapping

''... despite interest in spelling among figures as diverse as Benjamin Franklin, Prince Philip and the Mormons,
English has never, unlike Spanish, Italian and French, had a central regulatory authority capable of overseeing standardisation.''

That indeed wouldn't fit if the land of the free would have a ''central regulatory authority'' for spelling.

''Yet as various countries have found, identifying a problem and solving it are different matters: spelling arouses surprising passions. Residents in Cologne once called the police after a hairdresser put up a sign advertising Haarflege, rather than the correct Haarpflege (hair care). Measures to simplify German spelling were rejected by newspapers such as the Frankfurter Allgemeine, and defeated in a referendum in Schleswig-Holstein (though later endorsed by its legislature). A similar fate befell the Dutch, when opponents of the government’s 1996 Green Book on spelling (Groene Boekje) released a rival Witte Boekje. French reforms in the 1990s didn’t get off the runway, despite being presented as mere “rectifications”, and attempts this year to bring European and Brazilian Portuguese into line were denounced in Portugal as capitulation to its powerful ex-colony.''

''There are linguistic reasons too why spelling reform is tricky to undertake. Written language is more than a phonetic version of its spoken cousin: it contains etymological and morphological clues to meaning too.''

Most important reason for not doing spelling reforms. German reformers haven't yet got this.

''So although spelling English more phonetically might make it easier to read, it might also make it harder to understand.''

You maybe start out reading character by character in primary school, but once you are an experienced reader, you recognice words.

''Moreover, as Mari Jones of Cambridge University points out, differences in regional pronunciation mean that introducing a “phonetic” spelling of English would benefit only people from the region whose pronunciation was chosen as the accepted norm.''

For the above reason, I also would doubt a ''phonetic'' spelling to benefit the people from the region whose pronunciation was chosen as the norm.

''And, she adds, it would need continual updating to accommodate any subsequent changes in pronunciation.''

That's why spelling reform proposal are silly proposals.

''Yes despite these concerns, some changes are worth considering; it takes more than twice as long to learn to read English as it does to read most other west European languages, according to a 2003 study led by Philip Seymour of Dundee University.''

How long does it take for chineese or japanese children to learn all these characters necessary for depicting their languages?

English is a world languages, so also non natives does learn it besides their native languages and orthographies. There're even people knowing more than their native tounge and English's orthographies.

''Standardising rules on doubled consonants—now more or less bereft of logic—would be a start. Removing erroneous silent letters would also help. And as George Bernard Shaw observed, suppressing superfluous letters will in time reduce the waste of resources and trees. In an era of global warming, that is not to be sniffed at.''

Nothing would help, really! It's best the way it is. Every change causes confusion!

I'm of the generation that had to use the 'ss' in exams, but still used older learning books with the pre-'98 spelling. I prefer the older spelling and still use it.

<< I'm of the generation that had to use the 'ss' in exams, but still used older learning books with the pre-'98 spelling. I prefer the older spelling and still use it. >>
Yes, and the newer generation has no problem with the new spelling.

Both are easy. Still see no use in the change.

No, my dear Guest from Sat Aug 16, 2008 10:55 am GMT, things are not so easy.

First of all, the reform was introduced in 1996 by surprise, two years earlier than originally planned. That doesn't leave a good mark, does it?
As I pointed out some posts earlier, there were some attempts to reform the reform. So, dividing it in pre and post '98 spelling is a very coarse look on the issue.
Althought the ''ss'' thingy is the most prominent one, the reform isn't just using ''ss'', but much more silly things pupils have to waste their precious time with. The reform is considered unlearnable by serious scientists.
The ''new spelling'' isn't actually new, it dates back for over 100 years in many cases. The using of ''ss'' was discarded in 1901 in Austria, where it was in use for about 20 years. The increased use of capitalisation and the lesser use of certain compounded forms also are features of past stages of german orthography.
Some reformed spellings are grammatically wrong or have an etymology invented by Mr. Augst, one of the reformers. That's not the way a serious scientist would work.

<<Yes, and the newer generation has no problem with the new spelling.>>

Follow the links I provided, and you will see prove for the ''newer generation'' has lots of problems with the new spelling. The rate of mistakes in class tests increased a lot. Because of the so-called ''logical trap'', the reformed s/ss/ß rule, pupils who never learnt classical orthography are more likely to do mistakes by overgeneralizing the rule. You can only apply that alleged rule correctly, if you already know the classical one. It's also difficult to distinguish vowel length on diphthounges or on words where vowel length varies form dialect to dialect.

Breiniak Fri Aug 15, 2008 10:32 pm GMT

<<I'm of the generation that had to use the 'ss' in exams, but still used older learning books with the pre-'98 spelling. I prefer the older spelling and still use it.>>

Keep on doing the good thing! I exclusively use classical orthography. After leaving school, you are not obliged to use the reformed nonsense.

For those who know German, here's a goody:

http://www.sprachforschung.org/index.php?show=news&id=602#7345

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German Reform?

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