English grammar is chaotic !

English pronunciation and spellings are a chaotic mess compared with most indo-european languages ! not speaking about the irregular grammar !!! It is the messiest language !

How can you learn to spell ? will you ever learn ? Even UK’s Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, (George Bush -doesn’t even speak properly ) etc. made shameless spellings mistakes in official documents !
God ! You even have to spell your common name like Carrie ? Kerry? Cary ? Cari ?

What a mess! How do you cope in this mess?

If you think English is bad checkout Gaelic (Irish and Scottish)! Otherwise what you say is basically true. Rom (Gypsy), Hungarian and Romanian are other languages that also tend to have have disorderly grammars.

There is a natural tendency for human languages to be well-organized (Most of the African languages are). Usually, in the case of a disorganized language there is a case where the language has either been pushed and shoved around a lot (as in the case of Romanian and the Celtic languages) or there is a case where the country speaking the language has been invaded a lot ( England, Hungary and Romania).

The languages of Africa are very orderly for the most part, and show little or no signs of outside interference because most sub-Saharan African languages were untouched by foreigners. Yes, there was an Arab and later a Portuguese slave trade but it affected only the perimeters of Black Africa; yes, there was European colonialism but it was short-lived relatively speaking, lasting only about eighty to one hundred years.

That's what spell-check is for ;)

Brennus, I have to question your statement about Irish being irregular!? Whatever gave you that idea?

An bhfuil Gaeilge agat?

Ben.

Ben,

I'm sure you are familiar with German. If you consider German as one of the best examples of a logical an organized language among modern European languages (and I think most people do), languages like Irish and English pale by comparison.

Much of it has to do with history. Germany suffered no major invasions in before the end of World War II. The worst of it was probably probably Attila the Hun's rampage (c. 451 A.D) and the wars of the Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus (early 1600's). On the other hand, England and Ireland were invaded repeatedly.

an organized language > AND organized

<<disorderly grammars. >>

*Rolls eyes thrice*

<<There is a natural tendency for human languages to be well-organized (Most of the African languages are). Usually, in the case of a disorganized language there is a case where the language has either been pushed and shoved around a lot (as in the case of Romanian and the Celtic languages) or there is a case where the country speaking the language has been invaded a lot ( England, Hungary and Romania).

The languages of Africa are very orderly for the most part, and show little or no signs of outside interference because most sub-Saharan African languages were untouched by foreigners. Yes, there was an Arab and later a Portuguese slave trade but it affected only the perimeters of Black Africa; yes, there was European colonialism but it was short-lived relatively speaking, lasting only about eighty to one hundred years.>>

Nearly every single word in those two paragraphs is *utter* nonsense. It's not even pseudo-linguistic half-truths that you have but complete nonsense. You've almost reached new heights with that one...

<<Much of it has to do with history. Germany suffered no major invasions in before the end of World War II. The worst of it was probably probably Attila the Hun's rampage (c. 451 A.D) and the wars of the Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus (early 1600's). On the other hand, England and Ireland were invaded repeatedly.>>

Once again you're making outlandish claims and tying things together which aren't related at *all*.

Brennus, you literally have *no* idea what you're talking about. I know this is a perennial challenge, but the next time you attempt to talk authoritatively about language and language history at least do a little background research with relevant information. I'm not holding my breath but it would be nice.

<<English pronunciation and spellings are a chaotic mess compared with most indo-european languages ! not speaking about the irregular grammar !!! It is the messiest language !

How can you learn to spell ? will you ever learn ? Even UK’s Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, (George Bush -doesn’t even speak properly ) etc. made shameless spellings mistakes in official documents !
God ! You even have to spell your common name like Carrie ? Kerry? Cary ? Cari ?

What a mess! How do you cope in this mess?>>

The truth is that English spelling looks chaotic, but it actually does a pretty good job considering how different English varieties and dialects fall under its spelling system. For instance, you list "Carrie" and "Kerry" as implied homophones but they only are for people who are "marry-merry" merged. For many speakers the spelling distinction makes sense. You'll find that for many spellings which seem odd to you, someone somewhere makes a distinction that historically explains why they have different spellings (for instance, some dialects pronounce "tow/toe" or "vain/vane" differently, just to give another couple examples--it goes on and on).

As for "irregular" or "difficult" grammar, it all depends on your perspective on what language you're coming from. Those are not objectively quantifiable things. Also, one note, all natural human languages have their share of irregularities. They just vary in terms of what aspect of the language we're talking about.

Another thing to remember is that a writing system must be divorced from the actual spoken language in terms of analyzing it linguistically accurately. Just because has a "crazy" spelling system doesn't mean it's not "organized" in terms of the actual, spoken language. In fact, unlike Brennus claims, there is no such thing as an "unorganized" language or one with "disorderly" grammars.

My English teacher always told us: in English you write “GREEK” and pronounce “FOREIGNER “

The English spelling system is entirely chaotic, it’s a puzzle with no rules and no clues !!! The only light, comes from your experience of being confronted with the same “puzzle-game” structure. Or simply from a spell checker! NO ONE CAN PREDICT 100% a spelling of an unusual / rare / unknown English word.

In UK , there was a TV-show , (a form of a contest “Spell it right”). Offering huge rewards for winners! Nobody won 100%! I doubt that Americans would do a better job , considering the AM English being more simplified and “incorrect” from a British point of view.

This issue is a serious handicap for the English speakers/ students, confronted with a no-win puzzle, or a chaotic spelled language! Some spellings are completely irrational!

The purpose of human writing is to encode the human language in a RATIONAL intelligible and effective way, Giving a set of rational instructions! I think English spellings , before anything, should be converted to a rational spelling system. As a result, English writing system is very ineffective, slow, puzzling, non-sense, always stimulating human errors !

Reading English is not a problem ! Our brain doesn’t read letter by letter (ignoring the irrational consonant clusters)– just recognise the graphical word structure formed by letters. Writing/encoding is the problem !

In contrast with English – PHONETIC languages are the most effective way of encoding / decoding the human languages !

What you see is what you say - and what you hear is what you write!!!

A GRIK is a GRIK ! inaf is not enough !

The biggest handicap for ESL students is a tendency to constantly whine about how illogical and imperfect English is. Students who complain like this never achieve any useful level of fluency in the language. They are lucky that they were too young to complain when first exposed to their native languages, or they might not be able to speak at all today.

<<In contrast with English – PHONETIC languages are the most effective way of encoding / decoding the human languages !>>

Actually, *all* spoken languages are "phonetic," since that means they have sounds. What you mean is "phonemically (not phonetically) accurate writing systems." No writing system really strives for phonetic accuracy, but *phonemic* accuracy. There's a huge difference.

<<The English spelling system is entirely chaotic, it’s a puzzle with no rules and no clues !!!>>

I'm not defending the weirdness of some of the English spellings out there, but that's not true. There are plenty of rules that apply consistently to English thruout. If you see the made-up words "wug," "zimplationary," "thwet," "finnocutionalistic" or "fromming" you'll know how to pronounce them. We tend to notice the glaring irregularities in the spelling system but those actually tend to mostly apply to some of the most commonly used words anyway.

<<The purpose of human writing is to encode the human language in a RATIONAL intelligible and effective way, Giving a set of rational instructions! I think English spellings , before anything, should be converted to a rational spelling system. As a result, English writing system is very ineffective, slow, puzzling, non-sense, always stimulating human errors !>>

Spelling reform might be nice but there are so many different dialects of English that it's nearly impossible to design systems that account for even two different dialects, much less everyone. As it is, the English spelling system may seem crazy to some, but it really doesn't favor no one dialect over another. As I was saying before, for any given speaker there are a lot of spellings that might seem redundant or useless, but they make perfect sense to another speaker of another dialect who might make a distinction. For instance, if I reformed English based on my dialect I'd spell "tot" and "taut" the same, as I pronounce them the same. However, that wouldn't make sense to a lot of people who pronounce different vowels there. Similarly, a Southern British speaker reforming English simply based on that dialect would spell "tort" the same as "taut." However, that doesn't work for me--I pronounce them very differently.

This is just the tip of the iceberg--do you see what a problem it is to reform spelling for English? Even the "-gh" combination is pronounced by a few dialects!

<<This issue is a serious handicap for the English speakers/ students, confronted with a no-win puzzle, or a chaotic spelled language!>>

Only until they figure out the many consistent patterns which work most of the time. If you'll notice here, the posters on this forum, native and nonnative speakers alike, make relatively few spelling errors. There's something to be said about that.

<<Some spellings are completely irrational! >>

Some, yes, but they're actually a pretty small, if noticeable, minority. Also, remember that one spelling which might seem completely irrational for speakers of one dialect might make perfect sense to a speaker of another dialect. Which dialect would a spelling "reform" favor, then? Also, the vast majority of irrationally spelled words are common words that everyone gets used to spelling early on.

Anyway, I don't completely disagree with you. I would advocate spelling reform for English only if it were not so difficult to accommodate different dialects, but that's not something we can change. As the spelling system is now, it actually does a pretty good job considering the load it bears. Also, spelling "reforms," as suggested by most would-be "reformers," are really only changing spellings based on their particular dialect, which would make even less sense to someone else than the current ones do.

This is a lot more complicated issue than it might seem at first.

I like to think of our spelling and grammar as a way of weeding out the weak...

No, seriously, both of them give native-speakers a giant headache as well! ("Shoot! Was I supposed to use 'will be' or "will have been'? Do I double the L when adding -ING or leave it alone? Why the hell does "judgment" not have an E in it, while "judge" does? That doesn't even LOOK right!" And don't even get me started on punctuation....god almighty!)

<<Why the hell does "judgment" not have an E in it, while "judge" does?>>

Hehe. That was one of Noah Webster's ideas that I don't like. There's a reason the <e> is there. <-dge> is a common English combination for /dZ/, and the <e> presumably "softens" the <-dg> which otherwise would be "hard". Of course, we could just go back to the way they spelled this sound in Old English, <cg>. So, "edge" was spelled "ecg" in Old English, and had pretty much the same pronunciation as today.

We still have "judgement" as a spelling variant in the US, and it's one I generally prefer.

Kirk,

Re: "Nearly every single word in those two paragraphs is *utter* nonsense. It's not even pseudo-linguistic half-truths that you have but complete nonsense. You've almost reached new heights with that one...
Once again you're making outlandish claims and tying things together which aren't related at *all*.

Brennus, you literally have *no* idea what you're talking about. I know this is a perennial challenge, but the next time you attempt to talk authoritatively about language and language history at least do a little background research with relevant information. I'm not holding my breath but it would be nice."

Well, I don't really know how to respond to any of this since it's just a lot of hot air. If you want to discuss topics with me, ranting and raving won't do it. Being able to argue in a disciplined, intelligent manner with facts, examples, a grasp of linguistic concepts plus a little more kindness and courtesy will.

The English Language really IS one big deliciously disorganised mess. We have deliberately made the spellings chaotic.....particularly the spellings....just to confuse, bemuse and baffle all non natives. Why make it easy for them? We've had to cope with the results of our devious labours from the cradle so why can't they.....the ones foolhardy enough to take on the stupid task of tackling this ridiculous Language. If I was back in the womb right now I would make sure I eventually emerged speaking something sane like Estonian or Greek....anything but English with all its idiosyncratic eccentricities.

Mind you, Gaelic is pretty weird too, as mentioned above. For instance, would you know that if you found yourself in Steornobagh you would actually be in Stornoway, on the Island of Lewis? The former (Gaelic) is phonetically the same as the latter (English). A Gaelic B is an English W. Down in Lovely Welsh Wales a Welsh F is an English V.

So maybe it isn't just English that's up the spout. So which is the more logical? Who cares......it's all good fun either way.

Logical and clinical, ordered and precise, is just plain boring and doesn't tax the brain. I hope that Germans will for ever be confused when the train they are on pulls into Slough station......enough of that for now... I'm through with this one......it's time I bought myself some breakfast.....some doughnuts would be nice...I'm feeling a wee bit rough....got a bit of a cough. So I'd better gough.

<<If you want to discuss topics with me, ranting and raving won't do it. Being able to argue in a disciplined, intelligent manner with facts, examples, a grasp of linguistic concepts>>

Brennus, that's what I and others consistently do here. I consistently cite reliable facts and examples and have a reasonable grasp on linguistic concepts. Also, when proven wrong by better information than I had, I do not hide or ignore such comments or reply with evasive and irrelevant material. It truly is unfortunate that the same cannot be said about your posts, which do not display a basic grasp of many linguistic concepts and often include irrelevant or unreliable information.

Please keep in mind I have nothing against you personally (that'd be silly and pointless--plus, I'm sure you'd be a perfectly pleasant person to bump into in the grocery store or something) but it's your *comments* that are often not up to par, especially since they're enshrouded in an authoritative air which the actual content clearly betrays as unjustified.

French and Latin are worse in grammar (very difficult ones)