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33: Why spelling is hard — but also hard to change
🕑 Added 2019-06-20 23:10:34 +0000 UTCWhy does “gh” make different sounds in “though” “through” “laugh” “light” and “ghost”? Why is there a silent “k” at the beginning of words like “know” and “knight”? And which other languages also have interesting historical artefacts in their spelling systems? Spelling systems are kind of like homes -- the longer you’ve lived in them, the more random boxes with leftover stuff you start accumulating.
In this episode of Lingthusiasm, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about spelling, and celebrate the reasons that it’s sometimes so tricky. We then dive into quirks from some of our favourite spelling systems, including English, French, Spanish, Tibetan, and Arabic.
Because Internet, Gretchen’s book about internet linguistics, is coming out next month, and if you like the fun linguistics we do for Lingthusiasm, you’ll definitely like this book! You can preorder it here in hardcover, ebook, or audiobook (read by Gretchen herself) -- preorders are really important because they signal to the publisher that people are excited about linguistics, so they should print lots of copies! We really appreciate your preorders (and you can look forward to a special Q&A episode with behind the scenes info on Because Internet once it’s out!)
For all the links mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/185735719586/lingthusiasm-episode-33-why-spelling-is-hard
Comments
Lingthusiasm
Hahaha lawful evil of you indeed!
Marie Blanchet
I just really love the french spelling reform of the 90s, mostly because everyone else hates it! It's STILL not used anywhere in Quebec even though the government recommends it, (the gov doesn't use it either btw) and it's varying levels of used everywhere else in the french speaking countries. It tries to make spelling more efficient, but ends up changing words in a way that is just unnerving, or based on france pronunciation which differs from quebec pronunciation ahaha. Anyway I use it in my novels because people hate it and I'm a lawful evil writer :)
Maggie+Al
I feel like Jasper Fforde must have at least CONSIDERED it. -Maggie
Maggie+Al
I linked this to a colleague who joked about the "alternate dimension" where the printing press was located in York, and now I'm imagining some poor alternate history writer trying to go Full Tolkien and create a ...conlang? semiconlang? based on English forked into that timeline. God, imagine travelling to an alternate universe and looking at a newspaper to see what's different and being like "wtf the fuck is this"
