Those pronunciations are not arbitrary. Consistent spelling was not always important to English writers, so some of that may be arbitrary. The words though have diverse etymologies reflecting multiculturalism born from brutal imperialism spanning centuries. It is often a system of language evolved from violent colonial expansion. Every weird word and spelling that breaks the rule has a story. It may not be a perfectly ordered system because it lives and breathes while some parts grow and others whither and die, but nothing about it arbitrary. Maybe I've been listening to too much of The Allusionist podcast.

[–] geissi@feddit.de -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, but we're not talking about the linguistic history of how words developed.
We're talking about learning a language and the lack of consistent rules can make that quite difficult.

[–] ElderWendigo@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You brought up history, not me, by ignoring it through your claim about arbitrary pronunciations. Such a claim ignores history to make a weak argument for language learning difficulty. Pronunciations are not arbitrary.

[–] geissi@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

I'm saying that there are no consistent rules so language learners have to learn each word individually.
If you learn languages by memorizing every singe vowel shift since proto-indo-european then be my guest but for someone who just wants to speak the language and has to learn the difference between plough, through, though etc, it seems pretty damn arbitrary.