Talk:Dutch orthography
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[edit] Orthography v spelling
Throughout this article the word "spelling" has been changed to "orthography". I've no problem with that, because "orthography" is a nicer word anyway, but is it always what we mean? Remember: orthography = spelling + punctuation. In SOME places, like when we're talking about phoneme:grapheme correspondences, isn't "spelling" what we want to say? At any rate, changing the name of the article only makes sense if punctuation is to be discussed here too. --Doric Loon 15:08, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Perhaps I was a little hasty in renaming. I thought it was more consistent with similar pages for other languages, but I had not seen the English one yet. Anyway, there is a redirect as well. But still I think it is an improvement. "Spelling" is related to single words. In my view when explaining reasons for the spelling, the system behind it, and relations between words, "orthography" is a better word. −Woodstone 19:49, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)
OK --Doric Loon 05:12, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- I have rephrased the part on long/short vowels keeping both our viewpoints in. I also added some examples to show why it is really complex for non-natives. −Woodstone 20:42, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)
Yeh, that seems a reasonable solution. I still can't see that the phrase "length is not phonemic" is meaningful. If two sounds are phonemes, meaning is carried by all the phonetic distinctions between them. To say that some of those distinctions are phonemic and others not seems arbitrary. But at the end of the day, that is not a problem that gives me sleepless nights. The important thing for me was that length remains as one way of looking at the problem, because without it, cross-language comparisons and especially the historical perspective are seriously hindered. We have no idea how the phonemes of PIE were realised phonetically, but we do know that quantitative distinctions are one of the keys to understanding the whole language family. Shalom, --Doric Loon 19:57, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Reform
The last para of the reform section is:
- Starting from 9 October there was a new version of the green book, with some reformed rules, not everybody was happy with it.
It asks more questions than it answers: 9 October what year? (I'd assume 2005 based on when it was added, but seek confirmation.) What changes were made? Why are people unhappy with them? If someone knows the details, could they please elaborate on them? —Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 03:54, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
- I reformed the sentence and added the year, and Woodstone has added some more information on what the changes actually were. FoekeNoppert 19:50, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
He emphasized the need for spelling to relate to pronunciation, therefore Mensch (person/human) and Nederlandsch ought to become mens and Nederlands, Russisch (Russian) he thought should be spelt Russies and moeilijk (difficult) moeilik.
It is interesting to note that these reformed spellings were adopted when the Afrikaans language was given a standardised spelling. Russian is Russies and no word ends in sch or contains that combination of letters. Difficult is moeilik and all -ijk spellings have become -ik. Also it should be noticed that latinate words have been germanised much more aggressively, for example konsekwent rather than consequent and aksie rather than actie. Booshank 15:40, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
The reform of '46/'47 was a bit more sweeping than the article suggests because it did away with the rather artificial (at that point) -n of the masculin definite article in the accusative case thereby essentially ending the case system as well as the masc/fem gender distinction. Shouldn't there be at least some mention of that? nl:wikt:Gebruiker:Jcwf
[edit] Missing section?
We have a historical section that discusses Dutch spelling in the Middle Ages up to 1500 -- and another that discusses spelling reforms starting in 1804. What about the period 1500-1804, obviously a very notable one for the Netherlands? Shouldn't something at least be said about what Dutch spelling looked like before the 1804 reforms? RandomCritic 21:33, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Oe is not u
In the section Regularity, it is stated that oe is pronounced as u. Now I may not be a linguist, but dutch is my native language. And oe is not pronounced as u, they are quite different. This should be changed. -- Pepve 15:13, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
- What is meant is that the sound represented by oe in boek is written as /u/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet (see the section on vowels there, and this, with examples. Iblardi 15:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
