The European commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceeded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).

In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft"c ". Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with"k ". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f ". This will make words like "fotograf " 20 per sent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e's in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" by "z" and "w" by "v".
During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud of kors, be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil b no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru. :D

Is this a joke? I honestly can't tell.

There are words that use "z" to make a "z" sound, and that use "v" for the "v" sound. If "th" and "w" are changed to these letters in these words, there would be new confusion in Europe. Does "zen" say "then" or "zen"? According to these spelling reforms, both those words would merge into one word "zen".

Plus, how would these Europeans who are using EuroEnglish possibly be able to work with other English-speaking, non-European countries?

The English language can use some improvement! Hint hint to Her Majesty! Hehe!

err..its a joke

and a gud on!, man vud zis be gud material for radio pranksters

That reminds me of our German grammar reform, similar jokes were made when it was introduced some years ago. But who cares, looks like it will be abolished anyway...

What kind of grammar changes happened in this reform?

We have the same problem trying to develop a perfectly phonetic transcription system for English as they do in Chinese. Well not quite as bad, Texans and Jamaicans can barely understand each other whereas people from Beijing and people from Hong Kong (which is phonetically spelled Xiang Geng in Mandarin) can't.

There are too many dialects of English with divergent pronunciation. People in Texas say "Ah don't lahk this bacon." People in Jamaica say "I duan't like dis biacon." What phonetic alphabet can serve both populations?

The European commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceeded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).

In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft"c ". Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with"k ". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f ". This will make words like "fotograf " 20 per sent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e's in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" by "z" and "w" by "v".
During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud of kors, be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil b no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru. :D

LOOL! Great!

What phonetic alphabet can serve both populations?

Linguists have complicated notation systems which represent exact pronounciations. They record language as it is spoken, rather than as written by convention. A linguist would have no trouble recording the exact differences between the Texan and Jamaican pronounciations, in the example you gave.

Finnish is written as it is spoken and spoken as it is written.

Why can't the English speaking world emmulate the Finns?!

. . . Did I use "emmulate" correctly?

It is probably because it is a 'young' language in a sense. They only started writing down the rules not so long ago. Before that it was only a spoken language, not a written one. Then they just wrote down the spoken language I guess and it became standard.

Or maybe I am wrong.

Won-dah-ful, slotty, you've made my day!
***

The problem with the English writing is that the writing is archaic, while the speaking changed. The spoken system can change rather fast, while the writing system is much much harder to change -- consider the practical implications: having to re-school people, all the printing system would have to be changed, books with the previous writing system would become unreadable to newer generations.

What is today's written English, once used to be a phonetic representation of the spoken language then.
(Fraggle, you take over from here. :) )


A general problem with the writing, the notation for each language is that the notation is the one of a standard variant. Standard variants are usually scientific "products", idealized abstractions.

What a certain language is, its words as they are in the dictionary is far from being a matter of fact. The writing, the dictionary is usually a summary of what a nation or a certain group of users speak; while they of course differ in their pronounciation.

The written form is a practical common ground where, for example a Scott, a Texan and a Jamaican can meet and understand eachother. Were they trying to communicate with the phonetic version of their respective variants of English, they would think that they are speaking 3 diferent languages.

***

Spuriousmonkey,

Does Finnish have dialects?

Spuriousmonkey,

Does Finnish have dialects?

They say so, but I think it is minimal. They can still easily understand each other. There are some different words and such. In Holland people can't understand each other.

Finnish is written as it is spoken and spoken as it is written.
same goes for Latvian

Linguists have complicated notation systems which represent exact pronounciations. They record language as it is spoken, rather than as written by convention. A linguist would have no trouble recording the exact differences between the Texan and Jamaican pronounciations, in the example you gave.Of course. But neither of them would feel at ease reading the other's writing because it would seem "foreign." I can write "Ah don't lahk poke chops," in a novel to make the point that the speaker is from the Southeastern USA. But in a newspaper we write "I don't like pork chops," and no matter where the reader is located he reads it in his own pronunciation and feels comfortable. Just the same way people from Shanghai and people from Hunan read the same Chinese characters but pronounce them so differently in their heads that it takes a practiced linguist to even guess that they're the same language.

The Chinese written language, with no pretense of phonetics, kept a nation together for thousands of years before sounds could be recorded. The various languages (they're not dialects, as we often mistakenly think) have diverged in pronunciation to the point that many Chinese can barely learn to speak each other's tongue, but they use the same words in the same sequence, about 99 percent of the time, which is enough.

I think that written English has done the same thing. Imagine if people in London, the north of England, Boston, and Atlanta had all diligently worked out phonetic alphabets. They would all be different. The language would start to fragment and what we now refer to as the English-speaking world, which ties us Yanks and Rebels and Cockneys and Scots and Aussies together into a more-or-less functioning community, would not exist.

Don't believe me? The Dutch people in South Africa did exactly that. As a symbol of their philosophical divergence from their brethren in Holland, they began writing their dialect of Dutch phonetically. Even their simplified grammar found its way into print. As a result, it's now recognized as a distinct language, Afrikaans. Any kinship between the Dutch and the Afrikaaners is a bit strained, to put it mildly.Why can't the English speaking world emmulate the Finns?! . . . Did I use "emmulate" correctly?Well yeah, but you spelled "emulate" wrong. ^_^What is today's written English, once used to be a phonetic representation of the spoken language then. (Fraggle, you take over from here.)How did you know I would? ^_^

It never really had a chance. There were always too many dialects of English, even within such a small country. Nobody could agree on a "standard" pronunciation of a word. They came relatively close in Anglo-Saxon, which is now better known as Old English, if only because there weren't very many people outside the monasteries who could read and write so there wasn't much competition.

But when the Normans took over and made Middle French the national language, any hope of standardizing the speaking -- much less the writing -- of a language that was no longer held in high regard by the officials was lost. Within a few centuries the French rulers, for reasons that would take a book to explain, adopted what was now Middle English as their language and writing it once again became an honorable endeavor. But by now the language was hopelessly saturated with borrowings from both the French formerly spoken by the nobility and the Latin that any person with enough education to read and write already knew. And the variety of spoken dialects had run rampant. Dialects were both a sign of region and social class. There were at least three different phonetic writing systems at work: English, with each dialect offering a different spelling, French, and Latin.

By Shakespeare's day the Modern English that we now speak was recognizable, and other foreign sources were routinely mined by scholars. Greek words peppered the language -- transcribed phonetically in Latin, for additional confusion -- and borrowings from most of the other major European tongues were also common, spelled in their native ways. The hope of a phonetic system was dead.

Bridge, mirage, adagio, atmosphere, alumnae, tequila, schmaltz, seraphim, reich, czar -- each word is from a different language, and each spelling conforms to a different phonetic rule.Does Finnish have dialects?If you stretch the point, Estonian can almost be thought of as a dialect of Finnish. The Estonians have been watching Finnish TV for forty years so they've learned to understand Finnish pretty well. Without the equivalent practice, the Finns don't pick up Estonian so easily. It's like the way most urban Brazilians can understand a lot of Spanish because they're bombarded by it, but very few Argentines, even fewer Colombians, and virtually no Mexicans, can understand more than a couple of words of Portuguese.

thats awesome

Does anybody have anything else similar to this to post?

YES!
For years I have silently berated our American brethren for using the word 'ALUMINUM' when what they really mean is 'ALUMINIUM'
Turns out they were kind of right all along.
When Mr Davy (Of the DAVY LAMP fame) isolated the element in eighteen hundred and frozen to death, he christened it ALUMINIUM.
Some years later and for reasons best known to himself, he renamed the stuff ALUMINUM.
The dutiful Americans took the new name to their hearts with their usual vigour.
The stiff-upper-lip brits on the other hand had had three years of ALUMINIUM and weren't going to change their minds for love nor money
America... I forgive you! :)

There is however no excuse for the term
OR-AY-GANO!

Old times joke about silly language transition......... ah well ^_^

I was asked by an American where ly-cest-er-shiiirre was once. ( for the brits folks)

Oops, its meant to be pronounced less-ter-sheer, just to help my colonial friends out there ;) But it is spelt a bit strange to be honest-Liecester. Don't ever go there by the way, its an ashtray with lights :D

when i was in britain the people i wsa staying with called in lee-si-ster

would love to see you tackle 'Edinburgh'....?

I saw that joke a few weeks ago. Made me laugh.
Have you ever tried pronouncing some welsh place names?

That's one of the better jokes I've heard recently. The best ones are always the ones that are slightly plausible. The best is when radio DJs say that the world will be switching to metric time.