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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Lunatic orthography (was Re: Esperanto as a stepping stone?
Message-ID: <1995Jan9.034726.9666@midway.uchicago.edu>
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Date: Mon, 9 Jan 1995 03:47:26 GMT
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In article <D23yws.FBA@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:

>English has beyond doubt the most
>lunatic orthography in existence, with French coming a close second.

A minor point in a well-composed response, but one that merits comment:

Compared to non-alphabetic scripts, English orthography no longer seems
lunatic.  Compared to Japanese script, which combines logographs (kanji),
two syllabaries (hiragana and katakana), and an alphabet (Roman script),
it is positively reasonable.  I nominate Japanese as the language with 
the most complicated writing in use today.

Even if I limit the word "orthography" only to alphabetic scripts, I'm
not sure English wins the prize.  How many of you have wrestled with
Southeast Asian scripts?  One practically has to learn several centuries
of Burmese historical phonology in order to write it correctly!
-- 
	Daniel "Da" von Brighoff (deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /\
	5242 S. Hyde Park Blvd., Apt. 303		    /__\
	Chicago, IL  60615				   /____\
