Proposal for a subtag registration (fr-2004-ORTOGRAF or fr-ortograf ?)

John Cowan cowan at ccil.org
Fri Dec 14 21:36:34 CET 2007


Mark Crispin scripsit:

> I agree.  Being a non-Francophone, I assume that "ortograf" corresponds to 
> the precise pronunciation of that word in French (or at least the majority 
> dialects of French).

Yes.

> Assuming use of Latin values for the vowels, does the way that an 
> Anglophone would say "ortograf" correspond reasonably closely to the 
> majority-dialect French pronuncation?

Indeed.

> The question here is whether some future simplified French spelling would 
> choose some other spelling of the word as being more correctly 
> corresponding to the precise pronuciation.  Is ortograf already at the 
> ideal?

Pretty much, though "prediction is very difficult, especially about the
future."  Who could possibly have foreseen, fifty years ago, that two
novel dialects of American English would arise, involving systematic
changes to the short vowels (those of "pat", "pet", "pit", "putt",
and "put"), which had remained entirely stable in most varieties of
English for almost a thousand years?  Within a similar time frame, two
vowel mergers have taken place in French.  There will be more changes
in future; schedule to be announced.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all.  There are
no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that
they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful. --The Hobbit


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