Re: Orthography supporting sound changes?

In article <dpl987$gin$01$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Joachim Pense wrote:

> In principle, It appears not to be impossible to me that reversals of lossy
> sound changes could happen if the old pronounciation is preserved by
> writing. I'm thinking of a reversal of a sound merger, or re-appearance of
> a lost sound.
>
> Are there any reported examples of such sound change reversals having
> happened, where it can be demonstrated (or at least is strongly believed by
> many) that the orthography was the only preserver of the old situation (so
> it was not also preserved by maybe regional or social variants of spoken
> language)?
>
> Or are there strong arguments that this is impossible?

Why should it not happen? Yet I consider it improbable. You need four
ingredients:

1) a language that has been written for enough time that sound changes
could be visible in spelling habits

2) a conservative and irregular orthography where sound changes do not
yield spelling changes shortly after

3) an influence of the spelling on the language

4) the absence of conservative dialects

For point (2), conservative spelling is not enough. French and German
spelling are fairly conservative but also fairly regular. There is no
reason that a silent letter is ressurrected in the pronunciation when
*all* letters in that position are silent. This reduces the possible
languages significantly: for instance English and Danish are left. For
point (3), I know a number of German examples, but they are due to the
fact that German needed standardisation which contradicts point (4);
English would be similar in this respect.

Helmut Richter
.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: Orthography supporting sound changes?
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  • Re: Orthography supporting sound changes?
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