"A Modest Proposal" (No, not that one)

Q

Could adding new letters to the English alphabet ever solve its spelling inconsistencies, or is it just too complicated?
https://www.quora.com/Could-adding-new-letters-to-the-English-alphabet-ever-solve-its-spelling-inconsistencies-or-is-it-just-too-complicated/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

amateur linguist

5.VII.2025

Either new letters or new letter combinations and reuse of the ones already there would solve the inconsistencies.

However, the result would be a very drastic change in spelling, comparable to the one between Anglo-Saxon and Middle English.

That means, the first generation which could only use the new spelling would be incapable of reading texts from when the older (current) spelling was (is) the only one. They would need to learn it nearly like learning a foreign language, or, if not, forego a Fantastic Four from 1970 or a novel by Chesterton from 1914, unless it had been transscribed into the new spelling.

As it is, we can read books from centuries ago, since at least for some of them we can access dictionary comments on what words have changed meaning and on what meanings had different words back then, plus in quite a few cases it would be obvious from context.

I didn’t find Shakespear all that daunting. This is because we have preferred keeping the spelling over changing it and so making it consistent with a changing pronunciation.

Another problem with your proposal is, if you wanted to change English spelling to a condition consistent with today’s pronunciation, which one? London? New York? York, Edinburgh, Dublin? What’s inconsistent in one pronunciation is consistent in another one.

So, to anyone who knows about language and loves letters, which maybe really isn’t you, your proposal is way too costly for way too little to gain. It’s not phonetics that’s too complicated. It’s the kind of things that happen when spelling or pronunciation rules change. Like in 800 to 813, an Englishman[1] came to Tours to improve the pronunciation of Latin in Church. The attempt was successful, and yes it went on beyond his death in 804. But by 813 it was clear, Latin in Church was no longer the high style of a language everyone understood, it was a foreign language.

I’ll now cite what happened in 813 from wiki[2]

A Council of Tours in 813 decided that priests should preach sermons in rusticam romanam linguam (rustic romance language) or Theodiscam (German),[10] a mention of Vulgar Latin understood by the people, as distinct from the classical Latin that the common people could no longer understand.[11] This was the first official recognition of an early French language distinct from Latin.[12]

Theodiscam probably was closer to Dutch than to German. But the language of the people was not “Vulgar Latin” as a language originally distinct from Classical Latin, the language of the people was the continuation of Classical Latin, and the thing that made it no longer understandable was the change in pronunciation as per Alcuin of Tours. In 813, it’s a bit early to call this popular language “early French” because that took an extra step or two: applying approximately same pronunciation rules to show the pronunciation of the popular language, first example we have preserved being from 842[3] and then making this a regular feature, not a solution to help out a foreigner, first example of the regular feature we have observed being from around 880.[4]

So, rebooting spelling rules or pronunciation rules can result in language divorce, which is how I would describe what happened between Alcuin arriving in Tours and another cleric writing Sequence of Saint-Eulalia. Sorry for not sharing your enthusiasm.

Footnotes

[1] Alcuin - Wikipedia
[2] Council of Tours - Wikipedia
[3] Oaths of Strasbourg - Wikipedia
[4] Sequence of Saint Eulalia - Wikipedia

Some Have Thought Me Antichristian for Supporting Pussy Riot

Not what they did, after verifying some of the words, but still at what they face.

If (after I had read those words) they had been charged for blasphemy, that would have been one thing. But they were charged with hooliganism. See what this could mean:

Russian influencers are FRIED
NFKRZ | 2 July 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2zyIN10PgU

I wouldn't share all parts of that occasion, some things were possibly blasphemy, but this point, no it wasn't: Bogoroditsa, Putina progoni.

And it wasn't punished as blasphemy for the parts that were, but on the charge of ... hooliganism.

No Way to the Father, Except Through Jesus and His Church

This Question Stumps Christians Big Time - They Won’t Answer It Honestly
Timmy Gibson | 20 June 2025 KANSAS CITY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6A1oaR0yTY

1:37 If you're a Jew not believing in Jesus for that matter.

If God doesn't excuse you due to insufficient information, or insufficient maturity (children, Down's syndrome kind of that level), you are going to Hell for not believing in Jesus.

But those excuses on their own won't give you a possibility to go to Heaven, you can go to Hell for other sins (well, small children and people with Down's syndrome can't commit them, but people with normal talent and insufficient information can).

The other point is, God would have to recognise something in you as Faith even if it doesn't explicitly contain Jesus and His Church, and God knows, but we don't know the difference between a warped expression of faith and no faith. If one expresses no faith, we must presume no faith.

If you as a person above the age of 7 are not directing your life by the faith, you are directing it in wrong ways, and so heading one way or the other for Hell.

Holger Lubotzki

@holgerlubotzki3469

Vishnu, the sustainer of the universe and all life in it, thanks you for your worship of him, even if you are doing it improperly by way of your jesus proxy.

Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 9, Verse 23: "Even those who are devotees of other gods, and who worship them with faith, actually worship me alone, O son of Kunti, but in an improper way."

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

@holgerlubotzki3469 Whoever wrote Bhagavad Gita, and it was not the real God, had no idea about Tyre's Baals or of Aztek Sun Worship.

Holger Lubotzki

@hglundahl We are still waiting for you to provide some good verifiable evidence that you are right about your creator g0d and that one billion Hindus are wrong about theirs.

What's the hold up?

One quick tip! Just because the people who wrote the Bhagavad Gita had no knowledge of the mythology of the tribal war g0d of Abraham doesn't mean that the bible is true.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@holgerlubotzki3469 I'm sorry, but Baal and Aztek solar deity are not figments of Christian "mythology" as you would put it.

Azteks were met within normal modern historiography and Baal or Moloch worshippers were met by Romans as well as by Hebrews.

In other words, the idea is that your Vishnu doesn't know he's accepting sacrifice of children (actually carried out) or hearts torn out of breasts to keep the poor ailing sun alive.

So, Bhagavadgita is shown false, you have made no similar proof against the Bible.

Holger Lubotzki

Funny how you lot love to preach but shut down and run away as soon the immorality of your world view is exposed with a simple question.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@holgerlubotzki3469 I neither shut down, nor ran away.

My response to you is still up.

It is not immoral to say that some kinds of servitude are acceptable and others are not, or if it were you are highly immoral.

It is also not immoral to say, being good takes a lot and not just a lot of things to avoid. It is also not immoral to say one's world view has the key to knowing what it takes to be good, especially not if you are ready to track the route from God to your own mind.

Mr. Gibson pretended this is immoral, I don't know why I'd take his (or your) word for it.

Holger Lubotzki

@hglundahl So you accept that it is NOT EVIL to slaughter infants just because their parents misbehaved.

Forgive me if reject your immoral world view.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@holgerlubotzki3469 "to slaughter infants"

Joshua on Jericho?

It would be immoral to repeat that. It was not a standing order on all peoples and all occasions, it was a specific order for a specific occasion. On God's part, the killing of those infants was mercy killing and Joshua's men were just His executioners.

Killing all the adults and letting toddlers "unhmarmed" would have killed them slower and taking care of all these children would have been undoable.

5:53 "clearly, that's not the truth"

Clear from what? From your current Atheism?

It says there is no way to the Father at all ...

Or from what?

Why I Disagree With CSL's Stated Case on the Subject of Becoming Catholic (I was aware of the quotes in the video before converting)

Why C. S. Lewis didn't become Catholic (even if everyone thought he would become one)
Gospel Simplicity | 2 July 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXsyqFRVIh4

2:44 "Orangeman" ... Tolkien's "Ulsterior motives"

ev9pfqwerty

@ev9pfqwerty

Underrated comment

jzvwkqvisl

@jzvwkqvisl

mere wordplay, equalling 'not RC'

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

@jzvwkqvisl No, the woman of his life confirmed what the friend said.

6:34 He was somewhat prophetic about "John Paul II" in 1990, who changed the profession of faith after I had already converted.

I just said:

"whatever the Catholic Church believes, teaches and proclaims as being revealed by God, that I believe and confess" ...

The Catholic Church obviously believes that all of the faith was given before the death of the last Apostle.

This means, in order to reach as high a bar as "proclaim to be revealed by God" it obviously has to be at least one side in a longstanding quarrel, it cannot be an obviously new invention.

Back in 1944 it was:

Besides I accept, without hesitation, and profess all that has been handed down, defined, and declared by the Sacred Canons and by the general Councils, especially by the Sacred Council of Trent and by the Vatican General Council, and in a special manner concerning the primacy and infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. At the same time I condemn and reprove all that the Church has condemned and reproved. This same Catholic Faith, outside of which nobody can be saved, I now freely profess and to which I truly adhere, the same I promise and swear to maintain and profess with the help of God, entire, inviolate and with firm constancy until the last breath of life; and I shall strive, as far as possible, that this same Faith shall be held, taught, and publicly professed by all who depend on me and by those of whom I shall have charge.

However, "John Paul II" in 1990, well after 1963, changed the profession of faith, adding to a basic repeat of above also:

Moreover, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman Pontiff or the College of Bishops enunciate when they exercise their authentic Magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim these teachings by a definitive act.

In other words, what CSL was afraid of ...

Seriously, adherring to Jesus meant for the Apostles to adher not just to what He had already said, but what He was going to say. If one believes a man is the vicar of Christ and enjoys His assistance, that should, per se, be no problem, especially with above mentioned safeguards (one reason I do not believe "John Paul II" was Pope).

Kevin Clement

@kevinclement1533

There's a fine line between unconditional acceptance of what Jesus will teach VS what a follower of Jesus will teach. Jesus is infallible, but a follower of Jesus isn't.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@kevinclement1533 If he represents all of the Church, he is, because all of Jesus' Church is infallible.

The task was teaching all Jesus taught and commanded. The help was Jesus as God Almighty. The time for that help was every day or all days and the limit for that time is Doomsday.

7:52 Jesus was telling the woman to give His Mother the compliment She preferred.

Bad exegesis, CSL ...

7:59 St. Paul on exactly one occasion in the epistles showed an attitude which many (not least in the West) have stated as being an "attitude to St. Peter" (others further east say that the Cephas in Galatians 2 was called Cephas, because he was different from the Peter in Galatians 1, that being St. Peter).

8:05 There seem to be semantic reasons in Matthew 26:26 against Consubstantiation.

There is no case at all for Symbolism-Only or for Spiritual Presence of an actual Body.

9:21 I'll take that as a less than endorsement of Vatican II, and as a compliment to Mgr Williamson, who died earlier this year.

I think he was buried in Canterbury.

Balázs, Greta, You are Both Wrong

First, the names mean Blaise and Margaret, for those who don't know Hungarian (I had to look Balázs up) or Swedish (I have met people who don't realise that Hans means John).

Orban Aide MOCKS Greta For ‘Failed Gaza Mission’ | Greta SLAMS Hungarian Govt Over ‘Ban On Love’
Oneindia News | 29 June 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRSeq2m8fQY

Dear countrywoman, the sin of Sodom is not an adequate expression of love.

Our countrymen Jonas and Mark can never both be actual fathers of the same person. They could be actual grandfathers of the same person, if Amos were marrying Miss Lewengood. But perhaps they have ruined that by raising them as siblings.

Most valued neighbour along the Danube (I'm as Viennese as I'm Swedish), Greta's voyage was a very glorious failure, if one at all.

Suddenly everyone was talking about starving Gazawis, and if Israeli or Israeli friendly media showed pictures of non-starving Gazawis, well, each Potemkin village is an occasion for Gazawis not to starve./HGL

Second Half of Video, I Made Parallel Observations.

Christine Niles on Recent Events and Others · C. S. Lewis and Anscombe agreed on this · Second Half of Video, I Made Parallel Observations.

Ukraine, Palestine, Iran and Just War
Shameless Popery | 26 June 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZOPPj_hQQE

19:26 "the state has ... you don't have that permission"

Correct about the violent response after the aggression is already over.

While a man is being aggressed, he has the right to defend himself, possibly according to the law of God (and St. Thomas makes a natural law argument this is so) and certainly, even if the law of God didn't grant it per se, it grants the right to avail oneself of self defense laws in place ... "according to the laws of the emperors" as the specific Church father said.

Note, if you have heard a certain story about me, not sure you have, not sure you haven't, on the occasion, I was NOT seeking vengeance for an aggression already in the past, I was just learning from the past what kind of aggression it was, and what my chances were to get things straightened out legally, and was then in my mind justified in self defense on a renewed occasion of aggression.

20:49 You have a miniature enumeration of institutions here that are included in "every human institution" ...

Psychiatry doesn't fit the bill.

CPS don't fit the bill.

School compulsion doesn't fit the bill.

21:08 And also, if the civil authority encroaches on the rights of someone other than God to determine things, like the adult person himself (under the laws) or the parents, that other than God is also not obliged to give up his rights.

So, if the civil authority tells a man he needs to see a shrink or a parent she needs to give up custody or send a son to a boarding school, resisting either of them in any way available is perfectly licit.

27:37 Not just against someone trying to kill, but also against someone trying to maim or enslave.

But thanks for admitting there is a right to self defense.

31:19 C. S. Lewis disagreed on number 3, which it seems in his time was being introduced by Catholic Theologians (his words, he could have been simply unaware of earlier Catholic theologians).

And as he was from Ireland, he had a fairly good reason to do so. He considered this one impossible to know.

Easter Rising of 1916, in and of itself, had no prospects of success. In Dublin, 1000 to 1500 persons at most took arms against England.

Nevertheless, as we know with hindsight, the Easter Rising was highly successful. It triggered a repression that showed the administration was simply paranoid about Irish nationalists.

Pádraic Pearse did more damage to the union from his gallows than he did with his rifle. As we know, Éire is its own state, not under the English Crown, no longer in the Commonwealth.

Pádraic Pearse couldn't do it on his own, he just had massive help from Lloyd George. Among other things, targetting Sinn Féin which at the start of affairs was hoping for a Double Monarchy, giving Ireland a status parallel to that of Hungary. And absurdly enough targetting Sinn Féin as German agents.

So, CSL (I forget which context) had a point that point 3 cannot be a criterium, since it is unknowable. Unknowable things can't serve as criteria.

35:48 Vivat Cascia!

My own three state solution with shared territory would have involved Jerusalem as under international jurisdiction, because important to all three states.

The Christian, the Jewish and the Muslim ones.

With shared territory ... as you may recall from a certain chapter in LotR, specifically FotR, there is no frontier between men and hobbits in Bree, but each side stays mainly to itself.

With three separate jurisdiction (operating all from the river to the sea), in the case of a conflict between two states or citizens of two states, one could and should ask the third to broker.

38:27 For instance, if someone (a belligerent) is hiding under a hospital, it would obviously not be right to bomb the hospital?

38:45 "they did in fact succeed" ... not very easy to know prior to Al Alamein and the German loss of Stalingrad.

Are you saying the invaded countries were waging unjust war any time between September 1939 and 1943?

Hence, CSL's point. A reasonable prospect of success would seem to be a non-criterium. Unlike, obviously, the part criterium you mentioned, namely having a criterium for when one has won. War on terror, war on drugs, war on immigration are too amorphous, because what one is fighting is not one given army.

41:36 And if the one engaging in just war commits war crimes, the war that was originally unjust may become a just war of defense against such war crimes.

That's pretty straight from City of God.

46:14 Contrary to Rosmini, he made an excellent case against a One World State.

Did Harald Bluetooth in 945 Still Want Revenge for Verden? Probably Not?

The SHOCKING reason why the VIKING raids began
Bjorn Andreas Bull-Hansen | 28 June 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StJ0BcKwzYI

Before I hear the video, I think I have heard it before, was it about the felling of Donar's oak or about the Frankish reprisal in Saxony? Both persecution of Widukind (who I think ended up Catholic and even a saint) and toppling of Irminsul?

2:18 Sure, along with Norway, Prussia, Estonians, Curonians and Livonians, Saxons were one of the peoples who were Christianised by force, in the Norwegian case from the king, otherwise from the outside.

Finland is a more complex case, one story repeated itself:

• part of the Finns were Swedish subjects (possession or in one case protectorate) and Christian
• other part were Pagan and attacked the Christians
• Swedish Christians took more land

But in a sense, the Saxons are not alltogether unlike the Finnish example, since Charlemagne's decision in 772 came after 100 years of Frankish Christians being harrassed by the still Pagan Saxons.

back then Christianity was forced upon people. 3:10 Christianity was not seen as a force of good. It was seen as a force of subjugation and control. 3:22

And Germanic (Saxon or Norse) Paganism was somehow NOT a force of subjugation and control?

And subjugation and control was not seen as, up to a point (like becoming a slave was not good for the man becoming a slave) as good?

When you state that subjugation of peoples under a common ruler and his rules and control over the subjugated people was NOT a good thing, like automatically not good, not just because it was on occasion abused and bad for that reason on that occasion, you are basically appealing to a certain fringe movement within Christianity, which in English are variously called Radical Reformation and Evangelicals and in Nordic countries Frikyrkliga.

A Christian back then (as a Catholic now) saw and sees a Catholic state as an ideal, given that Jesus told His disciples to make disciples of all nations (i e collectively, including state and government), not "people from all nations" as the Watchtower Sect mistranslate. Note, in the absence of a Catholic state, we still have a duty to convert individuals, see Mark, but in Matthew, the scope is clearly nations.

But the Pagan was not an individualist. He could of course decide to worship Thor or Odhinn or Frey personally, like Hravnkel Freysgode, but he could not neglect an actual vé or the sacrifices that were supposed to take place there if under his responsibility. And they did not tolerate the presence of another public worship either. If you check on the conversion of Riga, the Livonians were actually killing missionaries to stop the mission.

In the case of Odhinn, the cult was very much about subjugation and control, and Ynglings near a "lund" un Uppsala (now Older Uppsala, inside the Uppsala municipality) would every nine years sacrifice nine men there, and they would also make sure to expand. You know why the Ynglings came to Norway, via Wermland? One Yngling was just a bit too expansive, his name was Ingjald.

5:49 I'm not sure how much North Africa was involved in slaves caught by Vikings ... I took it, Christians who were enslaved would land in Scandinavia and become ancestral to later Scandinavians in part. Don't Norwegian and Danish redheads go back to Irish slaves?

If you are right, where is the documentation?

Christians in mainland Europe obviously documented Vikings had taken people. Vikings didn't document. So, is the documentation North African and only recently accessed?

6:19 Thank you for the admission.

So, in 900, a Viking raid on England, Ireland or France was not about revenge for Irminsul any more?

But your story about Irminsul or the Massacre of Verden provoking the Viking age, what about earlier Saxon raids?

Die Sachsen, die in dem Gebiet zwischen Nordsee und Harz bzw. Rhein und Eider siedelten, waren schon den Merowingern teilweise tributpflichtig gewesen, aber nie deren Untertanen. Auch hielten sie an germanischen Traditionen fest, wozu nicht nur die Religion und ein eher loser Stammesverband gehörten, sondern auch regelmäßige Raubzüge auf fränkisches Gebiet. Ob Karl zunächst nur diese Raubzüge unterbinden wollte oder von Anfang an eine Unterwerfung, Christianisierung und Eingliederung der Sachsen in das Fränkische Reich geplant hatte, ist historisch nicht gesichert.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachsenkriege_Karls_des_Großen

Probably, after a century of raids, the latter.

8:07 Keeping land under one lord, subjugation and control, through primogeniture?

Vikings were often younger sons who couldn't get their own land. Later on, people in that position would often become clergy.

8:30 Sure, but eventually Christians were better at fighting back than Amerindians.

9:52 Yes, indeed. Canute as he's called in French and English won England. For a time, later Danish rule was ousted by another Viking who won, or rather his descendant. And by 1066, Danes around Rouen were so mixed with Gallo-Romans that the Normans weren't exactly Danes and also didn't speak Old Norse.

But Canute and Rollo had a thing in common with Clovis. They found out Christians aren't necessarily racists, they can accept a foreign ruler to some extent, but they are confessionalists. A Christian population (which we are unfortunately running out of) is lots easier to rule if the king is Christian too.

10:21 I would add two factors.

1) Norse rulers became Christians and as such were somewhat less prone to plunder fellow Christians.
2) Christianity gave another outlet for younger sons. Clergy instead of going into Viking.

11:14 Isn't it still (even if you might avoid the term) Sankt Hans in Norway?

Thank you, best wishes for Sts Peter and Paul ...