--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Steve Bett" <stbett@...> wrote:

> Steve Bett wrote:
>
> > > What Swadesh, Pike, Laubach, and others are saying is that code
> > > literacy can be achieved in 3 months or less.
>
> > PD: Morris Swadesh and Kenneth Pike?
> Where did they pronounce on this topic?
>
> SB: A reference is provided below.
>
> > PD: Pike's concern was to "reduce" unwritten languages to

writing,

> > and, having grown up a good American Descriptivist, he

reflexively

> > assumed that a surface-phonemic (in those days,

simply "phonemic")

> > orthography was optimal.

Didn't Pike state a phonemic orthography was optimal and then quote
himself to prove it was optimal?

Missionaries of the 19th century could 'prove' that a syllabary was
easier and faster.

> However, to claim that
> morpho-phonemic English spelling conventions are optimal for those
> learning to read and write seems to be going a bit too far.

I was taught that there is always a playoff. It is easier to read
directly for meaning with a morphophonemic orthography and easier to
write a phonemic orthography. So it is important for reading
fluently to have 'hear' and 'here' as different and consisitent
spellings but easier and faster to write if they both were spelled
as you say them - the same.

Some dyslexics read long and complicated, even irregular words much
faster than they read small words with regular spelling. They depend
on the visual difference in the shape of the word. I remember one
little kid reading 'civilization' but stumbling over 'clap'.

Kids can read "draw a picture" and 'write a story' fairly quickly,
long before they can recognize the diference
between 'spice','splice' and 'slice.'

Suzanne