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Totally off-topic thread
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Saturday, 17.11.2012, 08:05 | Message # 61 |
 Cosmic Curator
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United States
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| Quote (SpaceEngineer) Damn these feets and pounds... Why not using metric system!
I use both, since I love science (and having a system that makes sense) but live in the USA.
3.28 ft = 1 m
2.201 lbs = 1 kg = 9.8 N
Also, 12-hour clocks. Those don't make sense either. Why have your clock read the same time twice per day? Yet I still have to think in those terms because I live in this country  And writing the date month/day/year. It makes no sense!
And the language! Written English is the most linguistically absurd thing I've ever encountered. Why does 'g' sometimes sound like 'j'? Why does the letter 'c' exist if it doesn't even have its own sound? You could just use 'k' or 's' instead. And what function does 'q' serve? And how do 'ch', 'th', and 'sh' make the sounds they are supposed to make? For sounds like that you need unique letters. And how does '-tion' make the same sound as 'shun'? Why are there a bunch of useless silent 'ugh's around that serve no purpose or make weird sounds? 'Though' is simply pronounced like 'tho'. 'Enough' is pronounced like 'enuf'.
</rant>
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| apenpaap | Date: Saturday, 17.11.2012, 11:19 | Message # 62 |
 World Builder
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Antarctica
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| Quote (HarbingerDawn) And what function does 'q' serve?
It's there to be cool, basically, like the letters at the end of the alphabet (X, Y, and Z mainly, but V and W to lesser degree as well). You don't neccessarily need these letters (Anything Q can do, k or ku or kw can do; anything X can do ks can do, etc), but they're awesome decoration to an otherwise pretty boring alphabet. Q is a fun, cool letter with its own character, while P is just a tool to be used in spelling words. I wouldn't want letters like that removed for anything.
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Saturday, 17.11.2012, 11:45 | Message # 63 |
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Cosmic Curator
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United States
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| Yeah X is unnecessary too. But I would never advocate removing letters. Instead, I would advocate getting rid of the alphabet altogether and replacing it with a new one, and a whole new writing system, one that actually makes sense. None of this "well, it's okay because it's traditional, we've been writing like this for centuries" nonsense. We invented a system of units of measure that actually made some kind of sense, it's time we did the same with writing.
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| DoctorOfSpace | Date: Saturday, 17.11.2012, 12:11 | Message # 64 |
 Galaxy Architect
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Pirate
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| I like my "X" thank you very much as it makes everything
XTREEEEEEEEEMEEEEEE
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Edited by DoctorOfSpace - Saturday, 17.11.2012, 12:12 |
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| Antza2 | Date: Saturday, 17.11.2012, 12:14 | Message # 65 |
 World Builder
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Finland
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| Quote (HarbingerDawn) Yeah X is unnecessary too. But I would never advocate removing letters. Instead, I would advocate getting rid of the alphabet altogether and replacing it with a new one, and a whole new writing system, one that actually makes sense. None of this "well, it's okay because it's traditional, we've been writing like this for centuries" nonsense. We invented a system of units of measure that actually made some kind of sense, it's time we did the same with writing.
Going back to runes would be fun.
They make much more sense than the current alphabet, since every rune is always pronounced the same way every time.
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Edited by Antza2 - Saturday, 17.11.2012, 13:15 |
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Saturday, 17.11.2012, 13:49 | Message # 66 |
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Cosmic Curator
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| I already invented a new alphabet. I've tried making a font for it, but haven't had much success (if anyone has any font-making tips I'd appreciate hearing them).
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| anonymousgamer | Date: Saturday, 17.11.2012, 14:47 | Message # 67 |
 World Builder
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| "Today, I'm gonna decide to write an alphabet!"
Anyways, I don't think there will be a new alphabet anytime soon. Think about how many things will be screwed up if suddenly every letter and it's role were to just suddenly change.
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| Blu3sman | Date: Saturday, 17.11.2012, 16:25 | Message # 68 |
 Space Tourist
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Ukraine
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| Quote (HarbingerDawn) I already invented a new alphabet.
Cen yu shou it tu as? 
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Saturday, 17.11.2012, 17:35 | Message # 69 |
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Cosmic Curator
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| Quote (anonymousgamer) Anyways, I don't think there will be a new alphabet anytime soon. Think about how many things will be screwed up if suddenly every letter and it's role were to just suddenly change.
People have adopted new alphabets many times throughout history. It is quite possible to achieve. Naturally it would not be done overnight, there would be a transition period for a number of decades as the new system was introduced and people learned and adapted to it. Somewhat similar to the process of metrication.
Quote (Blu3sman) Cen yu shou it tu as?
Funny... 
I would, but as I said, I can't create a font of it, and I can't find the sheet of paper that I had the whole alphabet written on, and there are a few letters that I don't remember. I was never 100% done with it anyway, there were a few tentative letters that I wasn't satisfied with but could never think of anything better for. I could probably show some examples of it though, maybe I'll upload some later.
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| SpaceEngineer | Date: Saturday, 17.11.2012, 20:55 | Message # 70 |
 Author of Space Engine
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Russian Federation
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| Quote (HarbingerDawn) And the language! Written English is the most linguistically absurd thing I've ever encountered. Why does 'g' sometimes sound like 'j'? Why does the letter 'c' exist if it doesn't even have its own sound? You could just use 'k' or 's' instead. And what function does 'q' serve? And how do 'ch', 'th', and 'sh' make the sounds they are supposed to make? For sounds like that you need unique letters. And how does '-tion' make the same sound as 'shun'? Why are there a bunch of useless silent 'ugh's around that serve no purpose or make weird sounds? 'Though' is simply pronounced like 'tho'. 'Enough' is pronounced like 'enuf'.
Because English is a very old language. It is like a living creature, accumulated mutations caused by an influence of other languages, the living environment, etc, and evolves. Russian has many such "bugs" too, for example why the word "moloko" (milk) pronounced as "malako"? A word "solntse" (sun) has a useless letter "l" and pronounced as "sontse", while word "solnechniy" (sunny) is pronounced as it is written. On the other hand, young languages like Ukrainian usually have well fitting writing and pronunciation systems - every letter has its own sound, no blind letters, pronunciation fits with writing. I think every language should be revised sometimes, maybe once in every 1-2 centuries, to update the writing system after the spelling evolves. Russian has been revisited several times in history, last such revision in Russian was in 1918 (they removed many useless letters from alphabet), and now it's time for the next one. I wonder does English have revisions in its history? Also, a new alphabet should have good looking letters, a handful for both typing and manual writing, and adapted for fast reading. For example, why does English letters I and l often have the same look? The word "I'll" looks very strange to me. The Russian manual writing system is hell in some words, letters "i, sh, sch, u" (yes, Russian has unique letters for these sounds - sh, ch, th, ph) have the same elements, and if they're written in a sequence, it is impossible to distinguish them. The same for letters "t, n, r". Not very good example in English - letters "m, n".
*
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| Antza2 | Date: Saturday, 17.11.2012, 21:10 | Message # 71 |
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World Builder
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Finland
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| Finnish is written just as it's spoken. It's weird how other languages don't really do this.
Estonian is really the only other language that does this as far as i'm aware.
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| smjjames | Date: Saturday, 17.11.2012, 21:24 | Message # 72 |
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| Quote (SpaceEngineer) Quote (HarbingerDawn)
And the language! Written English is the most linguistically absurd thing I've ever encountered. Why does 'g' sometimes sound like 'j'? Why does the letter 'c' exist if it doesn't even have its own sound? You could just use 'k' or 's' instead. And what function does 'q' serve? And how do 'ch', 'th', and 'sh' make the sounds they are supposed to make? For sounds like that you need unique letters. And how does '-tion' make the same sound as 'shun'? Why are there a bunch of useless silent 'ugh's around that serve no purpose or make weird sounds? 'Though' is simply pronounced like 'tho'. 'Enough' is pronounced like 'enuf'.
Because English is a very old language. It is like a living creature, accumulated mutations caused by an influence of other languages, the living environment, etc, and evolves.
Yeah, it's absorbed words from every language it has encountered. While it's deepest roots are in the Germanic language branch, it had heavy influence from Saxon (and other nordic peoples) languages and from Norman/French along with other native langiages. So it's a mix of various language rules. More recently, beginning in the 17th century, English started picking up words and influence from every language it encountered. Immigration to the United States played a role in it as well.
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Saturday, 17.11.2012, 21:53 | Message # 73 |
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Cosmic Curator
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| Quote (SpaceEngineer) I think every language should be revised sometimes, maybe once in 1-2 centuries, to update writing system after evolving spelling.
I totally agree with this.
Quote (SpaceEngineer) I wonder does English have revisions in its history?
None that I know of. The last major change to the English alphabet was when the Latin alphabet was adopted, over 1000 years ago. A lot of the language changed after the Normans conquered England in 1066, and many French influences were introduced, but I don't think that any major changes were made to how the language was written. In the history of modern English (last 400 years) almost no major changes have been made to how the language is written.
Quote (SpaceEngineer) yes, Russian has unique letters for these sounds
That is one thing that annoys me about the English Latin alphabet; it does not have enough letters to represent all major sounds. Some letters that are present are redundant (C, Q, X) while others do not have a unique sound/have multiple sounds (A, E, G, I, O, U), and some sounds do not have their own letters (sh, th, ch, oo, zh*).
The alphabet I created consists of 32 letters equivalent to the letters/sounds represented below:
Ā A B D Ē E F G H Ī I J K L M N Ō O P R S T U V W Y Z ch oo sh th zh
Visually though it does not look anything like Latin script.
*zh does not really exist in English that I know of, but many other languages do have that sound so it needs to be represented
Quote (Antza2) Finnish is written just as it's spoken. It's weird how other languages don't really do this.
Estonian is really the only other language that does this as far as i'm aware.
I know many languages where spelling and pronunciation are consistent with each other, it's not that uncommon.
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Edited by HarbingerDawn - Saturday, 17.11.2012, 22:04 |
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| apenpaap | Date: Saturday, 17.11.2012, 22:45 | Message # 74 |
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World Builder
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| ^It seems to be missing several sounds that are not in English, though. The soft G, for example, which is represented in Dutch as ch or g, and in German as ch; the Dutch ui sound (which can be heard in André Kuipers' name, for example; it's not Endray Cowpurse or Koypurse as NASA people generally pronounce it); and the Norwegian/Danish Ø, which is written as eu in Dutch and ö in German, are three that come to mind, since they all feature in Dutch but not (I think) in English. I'd guess there are more sounds missing from other languages, which I think will always be a problem when it comes to alphabets.
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Edited by apenpaap - Saturday, 17.11.2012, 22:52 |
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| Antza2 | Date: Saturday, 17.11.2012, 22:49 | Message # 75 |
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World Builder
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Finland
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| Quote (HarbingerDawn) I know many languages where spelling and pronunciation are consistent with each other, it's not that uncommon.
It seems that my knowledge on this matter is inadequate. Thank you for correcting me.
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