Misspelling as indicator of spoken dialect

[Loren Booda]

For persons speaking a standardized written language, one may measure the correlations between common misspellings to determine non-random clusters identifying specific spoken dialects.

What do you think of the feasability of such a study, or has it already been done?

 

[arildno]

Of course, one MAY do this, but at the outset, I'm rather skeptical as to whether this will yield any interesting and surprising (strong) correlations.

However, I would find it very interesting if someone actually did such a study and came up with strong correlations.

 

[Dresden]

If you wish to look at language in such a light, i believe that you should also look at cultral contexts. i mean, in this day and age, instant messaging and texting are taking over how we communicate, but are our spoken language skills actually decreasing? maybe that could be taken into account...

 

[Loren Booda]

Our dialect also depends on how we hear ourselves, both speaking and thinking.

 

[nannoh]

Our dialect also depends on how we hear ourselves, both speaking and thinking.

u kant b shr tht wt u reeds wt u gt

What I find fascinating is that often you'll find someone from Ethiopia speaking better english than the english professor in your University.

Its a matter of who taught you and how eager you were to learn the language.

I've got a friend in Scotland who swears that the Aberdeen U english department speaks better english than anyone in Oxford or Cambridge or anywhere in the world. When he told me this I had to listen very closely because his accent was as heavy as a tonne of bricks.

To answer your question, sorry, I think misspelling can easily be used and shown to be an indicator of spoken dialect and could point to the general economic, geographic and cultural origin of the misspeller. Misspelling could also indicate education levels and comprehension levels of the subject.

 

[ShawnD]

For persons speaking a standardized written language, one may measure the correlations between common misspellings to determine non-random clusters identifying specific spoken dialects.

What do you think of the feasability of such a study, or has it already been done?

I've heard this before, mostly from teachers posting hilarious essays their students wrote (mainly about how unreadable something is due to spelling/grammar). You can sometimes even tell the person's accent by saying the words out loud as you read them. 2 kids in the same English class will learn the same rules for phonetics. The kid with Spanish parents will make very different spelling mistakes than the kid with Russian parents, even if English is their only language.

how bout them bleks in seth efrika?