Subj : Strange a bit
To   : Ardith Hinton
From : Alexander Koryagin
Date : Mon Oct 21 2024 10:52:38


Hi, Ardith Hinton!
I read your message from 17.10.2024 02:56

 AK>> It remains to me only to wonder about the English language
 AK>> evolution. How on earth you put a letter into the word and don't
 AK>> pronounce this letter. ;)

 AH>> In some cases at least a word has been adopted from a Scandinavian
 AH>> or northern European language & we've trimmed a few inflections
 AH>> etc. :-))

 AK>> In other words, in "Milne" and other similar cases you can put a
 AK>> letter for no reason and which has no any sense.

 AH> Hmm. I think you were on the right track when you commented that
 AH> the "e" in this name may have been spoken aloud years ago.

Usually in English e, i, y  tell us about specific pronunciation of the syllable behind. For instance, "bit"/"bite", "kit"/"kite". However in astrology every letter is important and they say can change the person's destiny. ;)

 AH> Pronunciations in English often vary from one time & place to
 AH> another... and I don't know where this name originated. But IMHO
 AH> it's most likely the pronunciation changed & we never got around to
 AH> changing the spelling. I'm told that's what happened with
 AH> e.g. "gnash" and "knife".... :-)

It would be interesting for me to learn who threw "k" first and why others started follow him. ;-)

 AK>> Very probably this tricks came from French which is far ahead in
 AK>> this area.

 AH> In French the phonics work differently from what we're used to...
 AH> but we often say that if your mouth is full of wine or marbles you
 AH> can cope. And I get the impression the upper classes in Russia
 AH> preferred French (which may have worked for them when they didn't
 AH> want the servants to get the drift) until they became disenchanted
 AH> with Napoleon, then carefully reconstructed what's now your native
 AH> language. The net result from my POV is that it's a lot younger
 AH> than my native language & doesn't include complications
 AH> like "silent letters".... :-))

Yes, the French got a great impact on the Russian language, but Russians did not accept those crazy silent letters. So Bordeaux in Russia is just Bordo, and nobody suffers from it. ;-) I wonder when in the USA they simplified English they could do the same. What a lot of ink they could save! ;)

Bye, Ardith!
Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2024

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