>
> -- Okay, here's where my conception that a spelling system can be
considered a characteristic of a language gets in the way of my
message getting across. I was trying to say that written "a", of
whatever origin, is always close to the "ah" sound in all Indo-
European languages but English, and never /ey/ as in English. And
written "i" is always /i/ or /i:/ or /I/, but never /ay/ as in
English. Yes, I know Dutch pronounces /e:/ more as /eI/ and /o:/
more as /oU/, but their /eI/ is written ee or e, not a. But you all
have made it very clear that you do not consider a spelling system a
linguistic characteristic of a language, so I withdraw. I suppose
you're trying to tell me that what I'm saying is like saying a
person's hairstyle should be considered part of his personality.
But I do think you have a point. English has two linguistic
standards, one identical to the that of the rest of the world's
linguists, in which written [a] is /รค/ or /eI/, and another,
domestic, which you find in dictionaries and encyclopedias for
English-internal use, in which written [a] is /a/, called a 'short
a', or /a:/, called a 'long a'. I don't know of other languages
the 'technicians' operate with such a double standard, unless one
wants to argue that the Dutch do the same by letting [ee] stand
for /eI/; but they use the 'international' standard throughout in
descriptions.
But this is all language sociology, not linguistics proper.
Torsten