[Spellyans] Germany

[Michael Everson]

On 29 Jul 2011, at 11:31, Daniel Prohaska wrote:

> In which version is <Germany> listed? I also find it highly doubtful that stress would have fallen on the penultimate syllable. I rather consider [ˈʤɛrmanɪ] (or similar) to be more likely.

Version of what? Anyway I'm sure he'd have said [dʒɛˈrɛmi] for Jeremy and [sɔˈfɔni] for Sofony (Zephaniah, not attested) too. 

> “> Why do they write <Germany> rather than <Germani>?
>  
> Because it's hard to use a spelling that's not very coherent and logical? :-)”
>  
> Funny, Michael, great sense of humour ;-)

Not at all. I have had the experience of attempting to spell words in SWF/M and SWF/T, in Skeul an Tavas. Even with me, and Ray, and Nicholas working on it we got many things wrong in the first edition, because the spelling isn't coherent and logical, and the only way one can learn when to write <i> and when to write <y> in unstressed syllables is to look every word up in one of George's dictionaries.

That's not how orthography design should work. 

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/