Charles, **OT**: more about language and society.
'Politics and the English language' is restricting itself in goals and practice compared to '1984' I think.
Charles, in German, differently from English, phonologic and etymologic principle will mostly result in the same spelling. So the shift of the guiding principles, although fundamental, doesn't mean a complete overhaul in the practice. Only because this is true it is possible at all to "force the language like that". Up to now the philosophy behind orthography had been: 'Let's write phonological unless important etymological reasons withstand.' now it is 'Let's write phonological even in some cases where important etymological reasons withstand.'
I tried to express that I am opposed to the reform in that it "officialised" a great number of more recent foreign words, that already had been used without "official" mentioning in the dictionaries, and now exerted the phonological principle to them, so that they are spelt like they sound in German, and not like they are spelt in their home language (mostly english). Up to now those words were spelt in their own right, as a provisional arrangement, awaiting the normative judgment of the reforms commission.
Now we have words like "Stopp", "Tipp" etc. to name the lesser cases.
My idea would have been to go the other way round and naturalize those words (plus a few that had been phonologically normed and put into earlier dictionaries) in their original spelling. Although this might pose some problems for the first years in elementary school, it eases the learning process for the first foreign language, which is now learnt by over 90% of pupils. Immigrants and guests to Germany however often like the phonologic principle better (if they are not English, that is).
In principle, though, a language with a phonologic spelling principle is a good egalitarian anti-elitist idea: you don't need to see a word written to spell it correctly, but you can take it directly from your neighbours', teachers', judges', bureaucrats' mouth to cite it correctly in your written backlash to their infringement on your rights. Otoh that has never been true enough in German to work correctly. E.g. we had such idiocies like an archaic 'th' in 'Thron' (engl.: 'throne', but pronounced like 'troooon'). The 'h' has no phonological meaning and should have been abolished together with other examples of 'th' in a previous reform. Only the emperor William II didn't want those scientists to exert power over his regalia and threatened to kill the reform altogether... His exact words were: "Am Thron wird nicht geruettelt!" ("Don't shake my throne!"). One historic example of an authoritarian leader who didn't question the potential of language to subvert or support hierarchical structures....
Another assumption of mine is that spelling is taken more seriously by German readers than English ones ... |
