> An unusual* technological artifact, brought about by the rise of the
> printing press, and the invention of the dictionary (i.e. the notion of
> standardized spelling).
You seem the be eliding the several centuries between Caxton and Johnson in your thesis about when English spelling was "frozen". In fact, spelling continued to mutate long after the invention of the printing press (try reading Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight, or even Malory, especially after a beer or two...), and was hardly phonetic at the beginning of the process. Furthermore other languages (more or less all other languages) have undergone the same process, with different results (albeit usually on a different timeframe).
The real reason English is so "badly spelt" is the historical agglomeration of several different languages, with an equal number of different spelling conventions. (Incidentally, does anyone know where English got that nasty "-igh" ("eye") construction from? Only other language I know of that has a similar spelling convention is Irish/Scots Gaelic, which seems a very unlikely source.)
> English [...] underwent the Great Vowel Shift among others.
Which one was that? My "a" is hardly the same as that of Simon Hibbs, or MOB, or Neil Robinson, or <tries to think of Northern English digester, and fails>. Vowel-shifting is a popular and on-going sport for any number of players.
> * Actually, I suspect French had a similar problem, given their spelling
> also doesn't match sounds very well.
Apart from the occassional no-brainer like "femme", French pronunciation is pretty "standard", once you know all the rules for which letters not to pronounce at all (most of the time, it often feels like).
ObGlorantha: yes, printing does act as a "brake" on the changing of spelling in a language. As can the existence of Holy, and thus Unalterable, texts in said language. So I think a common written alphabetic Western is perfectly credible, which is where we came in.
> On an unrelated issue, I think Babeester Gor women dress like men
Veeeeery unlikely, I think, given the stereotype of Babistas as "defenders of womanhood" and "man-castrating harpies".
Slainte,
Alex.
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