On Jul 11, 2008, at 8:33 AM, Chris Doss wrote:
> Please no jokes about my own writing style. :)
>
> There are a lot of very literate and linguistically trained people
> here, so I thought I'd ask for some advice. I'm translating part of
> Rasputin's Diary. This document is actually of disputed
> authenticity, and may either actually be the work of Rasputin or a
> forgery put out by the Cheka for propaganda purposed. Anyway this
> isn't relevant for my concerns.
>
> Anyway, the document is written in semiliterate Russian. Especially,
> words are written spelled as they sound. I really don't know how to
> reproduce this in English -- I don't believe I have ever seen an
> example of semiliterate English in writing. If eye rite de wurdz
> like dis it lukz stoopid. Can anybody point me at an example of a
> similar English document (written by a semiliterate or somebody
> successfully pretending to be a semiliterate) that I can use as an
> example? The nearest I can think of off the cuff are some of
> Dickens' and Faulkner's dialogue, and I don't want Rasputin to sound
> like a cockney waif or like he lived in Mississippi in 1910.
IIRC, GBS invnted a fonetic Nglish orfografy.
Shane Mage
"Thunderbolt steers all things...it consents and does not consent to be called Zeus."
Herakleitos of Ephesos