Euro English
**Rowland Croucher**
non-braggards who'll admit to ignorance about this important
trend/subject :-)
****
The European Commission has just announced that English will be the
official language of the European Union. German, which was the other
possibility, narrowly missed out.
During negotiations, the British Government conceded that English
spelling had some room for improvement and accepted a 5- year phase-in
plan that would become known as "Euro-English".
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly this will
make sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in
favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have
one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond
year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make
words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted
to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have
always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag
is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer pepl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with
"z" and "w" with "v".
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining
"ou" and after zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu
understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.
Und after zis fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German; lik zey vunted in
ze forst plas.
If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.
Hav a nis lif,
--
Shalom/Salaam/Pax! Rowland Croucher
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/ (20,000 articles 4000 humor)
Blogs - http://rowlandsblogs.blogspot.com/
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Don H
message news:473e8b74$0$25113$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...
# It has been claimed the only reason the English Language is so widely
used is a mere historical accident - the prevalence of the erstwhile British
Empire.
But it is this very cosmopolitan venture, plus the "rough edges being
knocked off" of the "mongrel" British Isles (with its own invasions, in
turn), which has polished up, and streamlined, English into a very efficient
communicator.
Don't be too quick to laugh at its spelling either - which is more
sophisticated than many will credit; as witness various attempts at reform,
which mostly fail.
True, such Rules of Spelling as exist may have many exceptions, but the
Rules are handy to know and apply.
As to English versus German - English ("Anglish") was once Germanic
itself, as per the invasion of Britain by the Angles. Saxons, and Jutes.
My own modest reform of English would be in use of "ch", such that it
always sounded thus, by slight modification of words: "schalet, children,
sckool" - thus retaining connection with original, yet being consistent.
The weakness of English is that it has insufficient vowel symbols to cope
with its vowel sounds, but this is where rules take over, and diacritical
marks are avoided.