Richard Wordingham wrote:

>
> --- 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?

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.

In America there's no /h/ in herb.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...