From: me@yahoo.com
On 2024-07-02 14:06:40 +0000, Christian Weisgerber said:
> On 2024-07-02, Ross Clark wrote:
>
>> The Spelling Bee -- unique to the English-speaking world*, a ritual
>
> I'm pretty sure there have been spelling contests on French TV.
Definitely. The late Bernard Pivot ran a very popular series of
progammes called Les Dicos d'Or around 30 years ago. Errors in French
spelling proved to depend a lot on the obscure rules of gramamatical
agreement that plague efforts to write in French. One episode annoyed
me. It was filmed in Strasbourg and one question concerned someone who
had taken a trip on the île. Now, anyone who doesn't know Strasbourg
will naturally interpret it as île. People who do know Strasbourg will
know that there is no island that could be relevant, and that the local
river is the Ill.
My recollection is that the series was inspired by a dictation
constructed by Prosper Mérimée in the 19th century, so the idea is far
from being modern.
I don't think that sort of programme would work in Spanish, where a lot
would depend on possibilities of confusion between b and v and between
y and ll. Similarly with German. (I had just one year of German at
school, but right from the beginning I could do a dictation with almost
no errors, despite not understanding what the text was saying.)
>
> Basically any language where getting from pronunciation to spelling
> involves a lot of ambiguity is a candidate.
> Thai? Chinese??
Spelling to pronunciation works well in French (much better than in
English), apart from a few oddities like poêle and oignon;
pronunciation to spelling, on the other hand, is just as bad as in
English.
--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 37 years; mainly
in England until 1987.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
|
