Effect of Writing on Language (was: Neosyllabaries)

From: Richard Wordingham
Message: 4934
Date: 2005-04-27

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...> wrote:
> i18n@... wrote:
> >
> > Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> ? Since the vast majority of humans have never been literate, it would
> be quite difficult for a writing system to have any but the slightest
> effect on its language.

Even American English?

And a great deal of vocabulary (especially ours) is due to the writing
system!

Are you sure English /h/ is retained and not restored? The /h/ of
_herb_ (lost before the word reached English) is definitely due to
writing.

Richard.

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