As a result isolated pockets of English-origin people keep some of their
original pronunciations (which often were very variable - Oxford, Cockney
etc) and then nlocal variations come in and become fixed there as well as
adding a few words and sayings from the local native languages.
On top of all this English is a great "borrower" of words from other major
languages too and of course the original pronunciation gets it's own English
version too :-)
I would hate to be learning English as a second language :-)
Regards,
Bruce.
Bruce Hansen, A.N.G.F.A., Advancing Australian Aquatics.
Bruce Hansen, ANGFA, caring for our aquatic ecosystems.
Please visit us at http://www.ozemail.com.au/~fisher/angfa.htm
-----Original Message-----
From: Diane_M._Blake at tspb.com <Diane_M._Blake at tspb.com>
To: rainbowfish at pcug.org.au <rainbowfish at pcug.org.au>
Date: Wednesday, 27 January 1999 1:06
Subject: Re: [RML] more spam
>
>
>why is english such a weird language?
>
>Basically, the way English words are spelled is the way they were
pronounced at
>the time the printing press was invented. At that time a dictionary was
>published and began to freeze the spelling. Changes in pronunciation were
>established by changing conventions passed from person to person. Take a
look at
>Chaucer to see what I mean.
>
>
>