"Daniel Fahey". (Hi there!) Discussion on how to pronounce "Fahey" (will that be one syllable or two, sir?) snipped. And you thought English was a language with a "phonetic" script, too. This is the obvious objection to those who object that written Western can't be such a script; having an alphabetic script with a notional phonological mapping doesn't mean the language is actually _pronounced_ that way. Pronounce "ghoti", to re-use a very old saw. Given enough conservatism about written script, and drift in the spoken language, one could end up with a tongue written using such an alphabet, which it's only possible to read in a pseudo-ideogramatic fashion. ("It's _spelt_ 'Luxury Yatch', but it's _pronounced_...")
Slainte,
Alex.
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