Roger Mills wrote:
> --- On Sat, 10/3/09, David Peterson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
>> (1) Historical Change: Let's say a language has word-final [h],
>> and then it disappears, but the quality of the vowel is 
>> unaffected (at least in some circumstances).  Then you might
>> have a word like "morah" and a word like "mora" that are
>> pronounced the same, but mean different things and are spelled 
>> differently.  The spelling is unpredictable, so it'd have to be
>> learned.
> 
> One of my Spanish professors informed us that Span. had no word
> for "to spell" (I think that's wrong (deletrear?}, but nevere
> mind.) When you don't know whether it has an "h" (or c/z/s or
> y/ll) you ask "cómo se escribe [on'or]?" you're told "con ache"

<c> and <z> are complimentary. <c> only occurring before <i> and <e> 
with <z> elsewhere.  Likewise /k/ is complimentary with <qu> or <c> 
with <k> only in loanwords.  The biggest confusion isn't any of 
these but <b> and <v>.  I think an L2 student can overcome some of 
these by learning the vocabulary with Castellano pronunciation.

>> (2) Mergers and Splits: Take Spanish, for example. Spanish's 
>> orthography is fairly progressive, in that if the majority of
>> the population pronounce something one way, and the orthography
>>  differs, they change the orthography.
> 
> Eh? They do?

I have noticed though on blogs and chatrooms that Spanish speakers 
like to to use <k> instead of <qu> and even sometimes for hard <c>. 
   For example you'll see "kiero" for "quiero", etc...