An assessment of the Unicode standard

[Paul Boddie]

On 30 Aug, 14:49, r <rt8... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It can be made better and if that means add/removing letters or
> redefining what a letter represents i am fine with that. I know first
> hand the hypocrisy of the English language. I am thinking more on the
> lines of English redux!

Elsewhere in this thread you've written...

"This is another quirk of some languages that befuddles me. What is
with the ongoing language pronunciation tutorial some languages have
turned into -- French is a good example (*puke*). Do you *really* need
those squiggly lines and cues above letters so you won't forget how to
pronounce a word. Pure ridiculousness!"

And, in fact, there have been schemes to simplify written English such
as Initial Teaching Alphabet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_Teaching_Alphabet

I imagine that this is the first time you've heard of it, though.

[...]

> We already live in a Orwellian language nightmare. Have you seen much
> change to the English language in your lifetime? i haven't.

Then you aren't paying attention. Especially in places where English
isn't the first language, there is a lot of modification of English
that is then considered an acceptable version of the language - this
is one way in which languages change.

Elsewhere, you wrote this...

"What makes you think that diversity is lost with a single language? I
say more pollination will occur and the seed will be more potent since
all parties will contribute to the same pool."

Parties are contributing to the same language already. It's just not
the only language that they contribute to.

>From what you've written, I get the impression that you don't really
know any other languages, don't have much experience with non-native
users of your own language, are oblivious to how languages change, and
are oblivious to the existence of various attempts to "improve" the
English language in the past in ways similar to those you appear to
advocate, albeit incoherently: do you want to know how to pronounce a
word from its spelling or not?

Add to that a complete lack of appreciation for the relationship
between language and culture, along with a perverted application of
evolutionary models to such things, and you come across as a lazy
cultural supremacist who regards everyone else's language as
superfluous apart from his own. If you're just having problems with
UnicodeDecodeError, at least have the honesty to say so instead of
parading something not too short of bigotry in a public forum.

Paul