shouldn't we spell it wengé then?
or was the congo (or wherever it comes from) not a french colony? because that's the french way of spelling it, and it works perfectly.
for all you foreigners: be glad we have some decency with spelling. it used to be evey consonant for himself. Now, you can actually tell the origin of various words from spelling. For example, from germanic origins, Night (nacht), and eight (acht) show a definite trend for replacing the ach-laut (unpronouncable to many anglophones) with a silent "gh". Also, germanic "d"s on articles, as well as several other words, have been replaced by voiced "th" (thorn, though the pronunciation of the name of the letter has changed since the letter fell from use. it used to start with a sound like in "the"). Some of those thorn characters have been replaced in turn by "y", since the original character stopped being used. For example, du -> thou -> you. Also, the english silent "e" on the end of words came from a germanic convention regarding the umlaut. When it was impossible to use an umlaut, or possibly preceding it's introduction, the same sounds were made by placing an "e" immediately after the vowel, so ä is the same as ae. that "e" moved with time, so in english, "mat" and "mate" follow a similar convention. For "Ö", a historical shift in pronunciation changed the sound, but it's still similar. The originial sound of "Ü" has vanished entirely from english, but is replace by a similar sound that is absent from modern german.
just proving that we aren't totally insane with spelling, it's just that it's much easier to learn all the irregular verb tenses, homonyms, sinonyms, and all that, than to learn why things are spelled the way they are.
or was the congo (or wherever it comes from) not a french colony? because that's the french way of spelling it, and it works perfectly.
for all you foreigners: be glad we have some decency with spelling. it used to be evey consonant for himself. Now, you can actually tell the origin of various words from spelling. For example, from germanic origins, Night (nacht), and eight (acht) show a definite trend for replacing the ach-laut (unpronouncable to many anglophones) with a silent "gh". Also, germanic "d"s on articles, as well as several other words, have been replaced by voiced "th" (thorn, though the pronunciation of the name of the letter has changed since the letter fell from use. it used to start with a sound like in "the"). Some of those thorn characters have been replaced in turn by "y", since the original character stopped being used. For example, du -> thou -> you. Also, the english silent "e" on the end of words came from a germanic convention regarding the umlaut. When it was impossible to use an umlaut, or possibly preceding it's introduction, the same sounds were made by placing an "e" immediately after the vowel, so ä is the same as ae. that "e" moved with time, so in english, "mat" and "mate" follow a similar convention. For "Ö", a historical shift in pronunciation changed the sound, but it's still similar. The originial sound of "Ü" has vanished entirely from english, but is replace by a similar sound that is absent from modern german.
just proving that we aren't totally insane with spelling, it's just that it's much easier to learn all the irregular verb tenses, homonyms, sinonyms, and all that, than to learn why things are spelled the way they are.
