[ELI5] Why have some languages like Spanish kept the pronunciation of the written language so that it can still be read phonetically, while spoken English deviated so much from the original spelling?
In: Culture
Ditto to everyone about the random spellings and eventual “uniformity” inspired by dictionaries and an increased number of literate speakers.
I’m a L2 (second language learner) of Spanish and a native English speaker.
Spanish only has 22-24 phonemes while English has 38-45. (World languages like these two have A LOT of speakers spanning a big portion of the globe).
*Phonemes are distinct sounds of speech. We think of these as letters, but English doesn’t have the same amount of letters to match the phonemes.
English also has a lot more phonemes than Spanish so exponentially there are more combinations in English than in Spanish.
Examples- English sound /zh/ or /ʒ/; this sound has no singular letter to represent it. Example words are azure, measure, Jacques (loan words/names from French), casual.
So /ʒ/ can be represented as z, s, j, or s. This variation is confusing so many people believe that /zh/ could be an allophone of /s/ /sh/ /z/ or /j/. S sound, Sh sound, Z sound, or J sound (/dʒ/ for j sound) respectively.
An allophone is a variation of a phoneme because phonemes change based on mouth position and the way your produce the sound (though teeth, throat, nose, etc.,,)
Allophone example- Stop versus top. Say stop and put your hand in front of your mouth to feel if air hits your hand when you say the t (it shouldn’t), but when you say top it should. These are two different sounds of /t/, but we only use one letter for these sounds. The two variations are the same phoneme or base sound.
This happens a lot in any language. Allophones are everywhere, but we don’t notice them because our brains steam line when we’re in diapers.
I could go on. Comment if you want more explanation.
Latest Answers