this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2024
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Linguistics Humor

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[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 30 points 3 weeks ago (23 children)

Two things about English.

First, English is not one language, it's a mix of several different languages with loanwords stolen from eveey culture encoutered. Grammar and conjugation is entirely inconsistent because it is based on Romance languages, Germanic languages, and Greek.

Second, English is descriptive, not proscriptive. In other words, there are no rules to pronunciation or spelling. English words are spelled and pronounced the way English speakers spell and pronounce them. That's how England and America can end up with such disparate spellings and pronunciations. If you are understood, you have spoken English. When new pronunciations and spellings become commonly used, they are added to the dictionary. When speaking and writing styles change, so do the rules of grammar.

[–] Hawke@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

English is descriptive, not proscriptive.

Surely there are no languages that base their rules on forbidding certain pronunciations?

(Proscriptive means forbidding; I assume you meant prescriptive)

[–] Gurfaild 4 points 3 weeks ago

Hiatus avoidance in Classical Latin poetry is the closest thing to a rule I can think of

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