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by umanwizard
3862 days ago
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English has been "weird" for the reasons you're describing since before it spread anywhere. It has more to do with the number of different cultures that have conquered England, combined with the fact that written English has existed for a very long time compared to most European languages. The fact that there isn't an authority that can dictate major spelling reforms doesn't help either. |
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Nor is there any need for it. An authority that could dictate spelling would soon start dictating pronunciation. It's bad enough that the pernicious influence of Estuary English is levelling pronunciation over the whole country but at least people, theoretically at least, have a choice. The only influence such an authority has is to artificially slow the development of the language and to try to shoe horn regional variations into a single formula.
People often complain that written English doesn't correspond with pronunciation. But no one ever says whose pronunciation that the spelling is supposed to reflect.
I'm from the south west of England and my pronunciation of words like house, boat, castle, book, etc. is quite different from that of, say the North East. So how would you like us to spell house? Should it be /'haʊs/ which is probably about what I would say and is also regarded as RP. Or should it be /'hu:s/ which is the best I can do for the pronunciation that at least used to be common in the North East and in parts of Scotland.
Would the spelling authority also specify which syllables to stress? Then how will it deal with American English which stresses the final syllable in cases where most Brits would stress the penult.