English is somewhat unusual in that nowhere is there a language academy regulating it. The closest thing we have to regulation is a couple of broadly recognized dictionary publishers, and a lot of grammar nazis. (Most of whom work in education and publishing.)
I think it's great that we let English evolve as it will, rather than regulating it...but I think it's high time for a few updates. Take 'knight,' for example. Fully half of the letters that make it up haven't been pronounced in centuries, and are completely unnecessary.
Our alphabet has completely redundant letters for some sounds (C, X, Q), while it has no letters for other sounds (the phonetic ZH, and about half a dozen vowel sounds). I'd love to update the written language to more succinctly reflect how English is spoken, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Think of the children!
My two questions are:
1. How do we do it? Do we just start spelling things according to our own individual senses of 'better grammar,' or do we need some kind of guiding academy? The first option has both logistical and social issues; for example to get the extra vowels that I'd like to use requires copy-pasting from InDesign, which is a pain. And professionally, writing in 'improper' English is very risky. But I'm not in love with the second option. As I understand it, even well-meaning language academies are prone to become overly conservative, even in the face of overwhelming calls for change. If anyone has experience with other languages and their academies, I'd love to have your insight.
2. How much is too much? Some updates are easy calls to make, but others not so much. For example according to our first writing lessons, 'knight' should be 'nite.' Simple enough, until we look at a word like 'anemone.' How do we designate which vowels are short and which are long? The standard 'e at the end' rule is downright misleading here.
We have too many vowel sounds for the number of vowels we have and too few consonant sounds for the consonants we have. Note: silence is not a sound as far as I'm concerned.
I don't necessarily agree with your correction of 'knight' to 'nite.' You could choose 'neit' (using German's pronunciation), 'nait' (most Romance languages), or even naet (Roman pronunciations [note: not Roman Catholic]). With 'nite,' you still have to concern yourself with the silent 'e' at the end and the English vowel problem.
It's tricky business.
The EU will be codifying and simplifying the language for us when they adopt it as the official language of the European Union.
Har har...yep, I saw that a few years ago. ;)
We have too many vowel sounds for the number of vowels we have and too few consonant sounds for the consonants we have. Note: silence is not a sound as far as I'm concerned.
I don't necessarily agree with your correction of 'knight' to 'nite.' You could choose 'neit' (using German's pronunciation), 'nait' (most Romance languages), or even naet (Roman pronunciations [note: not Roman Catholic]). With 'nite,' you still have to concern yourself with the silent 'e' at the end and the English vowel problem.
It's tricky business.
Indeed! Honestly I only mentioned the 'nite' suggestion because it fits the 'e at the end' rule, which I figured is easy for most people to wrap their head around. As you say, there're plenty of ways to write the long 'i' sound, but personally I'd just use 'i,' with a little line above it to designate it as a long vowel. That handily eliminates a lot of confusion right there, and works for the other vowels too. :)
Sentences end in prepositions now.
Deal.
It's doubleplusungood!
Absent a language academy with the formal, legal authority to make changes in power in a major English-speaking nation, any significant reform of English, no matter how poorly needed, is essentially impossible. Of course such language academies generally start with a few sweeping reforms and then get taken over by the most hidebound sort of linguistic puritan one can imagine.
Sentences end in prepositions now.
Deal.
Where'd you see that at?
That's something we can agree on.
The lack of a language academy is exactly the advantage that English has. It let's English be on of the fastest growing languages. I think that recently they somehow determined that there are a million words in English. With a prescriptive language academy this would not be possible.
Also prescriptive grammar is b$!~*%~@. Actual common useage should drive language.
It certainly shouldn't be based on old Latin grammar.
Also prescriptive grammar is b@##$&++. Actual common useage should drive language.
I wish to eagerly second this post.