no ə alphabet in English

[keannu]

Actually, English doesn't have an alphabet character that represents schwa sound /ə/, so a,e,i,o,u replace it.
This is one of the difficulties that non-native speakers encounter when learning English.
When I started to learn English, I though the alphabet was created by the English, but later came to know it was created by the Romans.
The English alphabet is actually Roman characters. I have two questions.

1. Didn't the British have any characters of their own in ancient times?
2. If they found it very inconvenient that pronunciations and spellings don't correspond to each other, hasn't there been any movement to create British characters to denote English pronunciations correctly and easily?

 

[jutfrank]

1) I don't believe there is any evidence that the people living in Britain at or prior to the time of the Roman Invasion had their own writing system. If they did, it wouldn't have used an alphabet.

2) There have been some movements towards spelling reforms, yes. Or are you talking about inventing a whole new alphabet?

 

[keannu]

1) I don't believe there is any evidence that the people living in Britain at or prior to the time of the Roman Invasion had their own writing system. If they did, it wouldn't have used an alphabet.

2) There have been some movements towards spelling reforms, yes. Or are you talking about inventing a whole new alphabet?

For 2, I mean both. I have studied many languages such as English, Chinese, Japanese and Italian, but regretfully most of them have pronunciation and spelling matching problems.

Words of some languages are hard to read due to unclear distinction between syllables and words of some language is really hard to read due to meaning-based characters.

I'm not showing off our Hangul, the Korean characters, but compared to other character systems, it's fairly easy to study and recognize even though it was created so late in 14th century.
Anyway, my gist is that it's impossible to use Hangul for other language speakers, but recognizing syllables and pronunciations in the languages I mentioned is difficult to make learners sometimes frustrated. - I mean, consistent rules of matching pronunciations and characters are needed for any characters.

 

[Tarheel]

Try:

It sometimes causes learners problems

I don't know what can be done about spelling/pronunciation difficulties. Languages evolve over time, and a word might change in the way it's pronounced but retain its spelling.

It might help to be aware of what what words cause you problems and memorize the pronunciation and spelling of those words.

 

[keannu]

Try:

It sometimes causes learners problems

I don't know what can be done about spelling/pronunciation difficulties. Languages evolve over time, and a word might change in the way it's pronounced but retain its spelling.

It might help to be aware of what what words cause you problems and memorize the pronunciation and spelling of those words.

I'm not justifying it but I do wonder if you know that the Italians pronounce "Internet" as "internet [[SUP]|[/SUP]ɪnternet] according to their pronunciation convenience & the pronunciation symbol.

Americans or the British may not have had such a courage to change their character system they have definitely found inconvenient before. If they had done, non-native speakers wouldn't find it so hard to lean English words which don't correspond with their spellings as of now.

I wonder if English speakers have ever wondered why "just' should be spelled as "just" and pronounced as "[dʒʌst]", not as "[dʒʊst]"
You have to memorize two things for one word. But in Korean, there is only only word "그저", which makes pronunciation and and spelling identical.

I do think there must be a reform in the English characters not only for all the people in the world but also for the native speakers as the international language. - I'm not showing off or advertising our Korean characters, but it's really practical and the easiest to learn. Many English learners speaking Korean or other languages find it hard to memorize and pronounce English words due to the discrepancy of spellings and pronunciations.

**If someone makes a reform despite the long tradition, he or she will be remembered as a revolutionist in history.

 

[jutfrank]

**If someone makes a reform despite the long tradition, he or she will be remembered as a revolutionist in history.

Then go for it, keannu! History is calling you.

 

[Tdol]

There were characters in English that the Normans using the French of their time did not have- ȝ and þ. Some of the problems arise from the confusion of mixing languages and systems.

 

[Tarheel]

There were characters in English that the Normans using the French of their time did not have- ȝ and þ.

I believe one of them was the thorne, which we use th for today. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

 

[Tdol]

There were a couple of letter for th, depending on whether it was voiced or not, though it has been thirty years since I studied Old and Middle English.

 

[emsr2d2]

Further reading if you're interested:

https://qz.com/914372/we-used-to-have-six-more-letters-in-the-english-alphabet/

 

[keannu]

Further reading if you're interested:

https://qz.com/914372/we-used-to-have-six-more-letters-in-the-english-alphabet/

In addition to missing letters that should match English pronunciations such as schwa /ə/, it's really difficult to recognize the starting and ending of a syllable.
It's because, in English, vowels and consonants are positioned in consecutive orders.
For example, in "obvious" and "internet", even though vowels function as the determinant of each syllable, due to serial positions of letters, it's hard to tell where a syllable start and ends.
I'm really sorry to compare English words with their matching Korean words of pronunciations, but Korean characters have syllables that are the combination of consonants and vowels, so it's really easy to recognize and pronounce syllables one by one.

"obvious" - ob/vi/ous - 아브비어스
"internet - in/ter/net - 인터넷

 

[SoothingDave]

The problem with creating a system whereby the spelling of a word exactly matches its pronunciation is that there is not one standard pronunciation. A Briton and a Texan each devising such a system will produce different results.

The spelling of a word in English may tell us many things about its origins and derivations. Or it may be a historical artifact, frozen in time. It's not solely intended to guide pronunciation.

 

[keannu]

The problem with creating a system whereby the spelling of a word exactly matches its pronunciation is that there is not one standard pronunciation. A Briton and a Texan each devising such a system will produce different results.

The spelling of a word in English may tell us many things about its origins and derivations. Or it may be a historical artifact, frozen in time. It's not solely intended to guide pronunciation.

It would be confusing if one letter varies its pronunciation in each word, and it will make learners have a hard time memorizing words and their pronunciations.
In some character system of the world, spellings and pronunciations match each other in most cases and it's not related to heritage and tradition.

 

[SoothingDave]

Native speakers also struggle with spelling and pronunciation at times. It's simply not feasible to have a complete re-work to a universally agreed- upon phonetic alphabet.

 

[Tdol]

FI'm not showing off our Hangul, the Korean characters, but compared to other character systems, it's fairly easy to study and recognize even though it was created so late in 14th century.
Anyway, my gist is that it's impossible to use Hangul for other language speakers, but recognizing syllables and pronunciations in the languages I mentioned is difficult to make learners sometimes frustrated. - I mean, consistent rules of matching pronunciations and characters are needed for any characters.

I learnt to read Lao, and I don't see how Hangul are clearly better. Some European languages are phonetic It is a question of what you know.

 

[keannu]

I learnt to read Lao, and I don't see how Hangul are clearly better. Some European languages are phonetic It is a question of what you know.

If you try learning Hangul, you will get to know how scientific it is.

 

[Tdol]

Tell me first how it is better than the Lao system- you are, after all, making the claim. I make no claim- I just want to see a scientific proof that Hangul is superior. A claim you make. Back it up.

 

[keannu]

Tell me first how it is better than the Lao system- you are, after all, making the claim. I make no claim- I just want to see a scientific proof that Hangul is superior. A claim you make. Back it up.

I don't know Lao system, but if I compare the Roman characters and Hangul, it goes like this.

- syllable based

If we take a look at "language", it's hard to know for non-native speakers to find where the first syllable is, where the second syllable is, etc.
We have to think about it for a while, then we come to know it is "lan-gua-ge", which most Koreans find hard to get.
But in Korean, it's "랭귀지" - 랭(lan)귀(gua)지(ge). Most syllables are composed of "top consonant"+"vowel"+"bottom consonant" to make one independent sound.
For example, "랭" = ㄹ(top consonant)+ㅐ(vowel)+ㅇ(bottom consonant)

language- 랭(læŋ)귀(ɡwɪ)지(dʒ)

- phonetic based
In English, if you hear some word without knowing its spelling, sometimes you can't guess its spelling, but in Korean, even if you hear a new word without knowing its spelling, you can write down its spelling based on its sound in nine out of ten cases.
The extra one case would be because of some consonant liaison or collision - I'm not sure of the grammar term.

ex) 1.잉글리쉬(ɪŋɡlɪʃ)- we can write down as it is when we hear it.
2. 영어(English) - ㅓ sound in "어" is like schwa in English, and it's never pronounced as any other sound.
3. exception - 글자(pronunciation - 글짜 gulzza) - due to constant collision.

 

[jutfrank]

If we take a look at "language", it's hard to know for non-native speakers to find where the first syllable is, where the second syllable is, etc.
We have to think about it for a while, then we come to know it is "lan-gua-ge"

That's incorrect. It's lan-guage. There are only two syllables, not three.

 

[keannu]

That's incorrect. It's lan-guage. There are only two syllables, not three.

OK, I was mistaken, let me correct it like this.

language- 랭(læŋ)귖(ɡwɪdʒ)