Re: Orthography supporting sound changes?

Aidan Kehoe wrote:
>
> Ar an seachtú lá de m� Eanair, scr�obh Peter T. Daniels:
>
> > > > > > 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)?
> > > >
> > > > [...]
> > > >
> > > > You left out the most relevant point: children would have to learn to
> > > > spell before they learned to talk.
> > >
> > > Because children are the only vectors of sound change?
> >
> > Pretty much.
>
> Well, thatâ*?s false. Consider the twentieth century in Europe, and the
> displacement by the standard language of local varieties in Italy, France
> and Germany, among other countries. Often this displacement was a matter of,
> in large part, sound changes.

That makes no sense.

"Sound change" is a technical term, which certainly doesn't apply to
learning a standard language on top of a local vernacular!

> Part of the displacement, at least, happened with military service--cf. the
> Breton experience, where the first step in its hopefully-reversing death was
> sparked by the realisation of soldiers in the Grande Guerre that French as a
> vernacular was much more useful--and soldiers under 16 in Europe havenâ*?t
> been the normal course of events for a 150 years, at least.

Sorry, there's no way to relate French to Breton via "sound change."
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
.