Ghoti

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Ghoti is a fictional word from the English language . The invention is wrongly attributed to the Irish writer George Bernard Shaw . The word is the lack of logic of the English written language ( phonetic spelling ), or their mutilated phoneme - grapheme -Korrespondenz satirize , because it is logically justified, Ghoti like the English word fish [ fɪʃ ]: speak (German "Fish").

composition

  • gh should as in enou gh , rou gh , lau gh or cou gh as [⁠ f ⁠] are pronounced
  • o as in w o men (plural) would correspond to a [⁠ ɪ ⁠]
  • ti would be considered [⁠ ʃ ⁠] as in the words na ti on or mar ti pronounced al

criticism

Although this construct is a popular argument for an English spelling reform, it has its catches:

  1. <gh> is always at the beginning of a word as [ g ],
  2. <o> is used exclusively in the word "women" ( plural of "woman") as [ ɪ ], and
  3. <ti> is never pronounced at the end of a word , otherwise only at the following vowel, mostly in Latin loan words as [ ʃ ].

So the word can only be pronounced as goatee (= goatee) [ ˈgəʊ̯tiː ].

A spelling reform in the direction of phonetic transcription would also result in the loss of a lot of etymological information.

Newer reading

Another reading that has become known is composed as follows:

  • gh is pronounced here as in ni gh t or fi gh t,
  • o as in pe o ple,
  • t as in ball t , gourme t or mor t gage,
  • i finally as in bus i pronounced ness.

Accordingly, one should not pronounce the word at all, since none of the graphemes mentioned represents an actual sound in the respective word, they are mute.

More satires

In addition to Ghoti , there are other pastiche, the origin of which is unknown:

If

  • gh as [⁠ p ⁠] in hiccou gh ,
  • ough like [ əʊ ] in d ough ,
  • PHth as [⁠ t ⁠] in PHth isis,
  • eigh like [ eɪ ] in n eigh bour,
  • tte like [⁠ t ⁠] in gauze tte ,
  • eau as [ əʊ ] is pronounced in plat eau ,

then it should be possible to write the English word potato (German: "potato") ghoughphtheightteeau .

If

  • ti as [⁠ ʃ ⁠] in na ti on,
  • o as [⁠ ɪ ⁠] in w o men,
  • gh as [⁠ p ⁠] in hiccou gh is pronounced,

then it should be possible to write the word ship (German: "Schiff") tiogh .

Trivia

The developer of the Klingon language , Marc Okrand , deliberately chose the word ghotI [ ɣotɪʔ ] for fish .

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ben Zimmer: On Language: Ghoti. In: The New York Times. Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, June 25, 2010, accessed September 15, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Mark Rosenfelder: Hou tu pranownse Inglish. In: Zompist.com. Mark Rosenfelder, 2000, accessed September 15, 2019 .