this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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I assume there must be a reason why sign language is superior but I genuinely don't know why.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I've heard that because written English is phonetic - meaning it shows how the sounds are (approximately) - then for people who have always been deaf that doesn't make the same sense, and reading words is a bit like reading a bunch of telephone numbers and remembering what they mean.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I.e. the same as a programming language, which can be easily learned to be read at astounding speed... Also, written English is one of the least phonetic languages you could possibly find.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Not really. You can still sound out the phonemes in a programming language. Perhaps if the whole thing were perl memes. And while I agree English orthography is a mess, for "not phonetic" it holds no candle to Chinese.

Maybe Chinese is a better comparison, I hadn't thought of that.