In another thread, I asked if Yiddish was a German dialect. Actually, I think I said "a dialect of German", but what I really meant was "is it a German dialect in general? In response, some people cited the different spelling system used as a reason it wasn't a dialect. Of course, I don't agree with this. The Mennonites have their own spelling system too, but they do that (as the Jews do, especially when they romanize the spelling) to purposely distance themselves from the Standard German.
But all that brings us around to the question of Dutch. I don't know Dutch, but I can see that it's pretty close to German. Actually, on a line between English and German, I'd say Dutch is about three-quarters of the way to German. But that's not my question.
Of course, the Dutch spell their language completely differently. They're entitled to, because they pronounce it differently. But the English pronounce things differently from the French, and yet we spell many of our Latin words exactly the same as the French do. We just pronounce them differently.
In the other thread, I give some examples to show how, if you wanted to, you could spell Yiddish almost exactly like the Germans, and it would be perfectly understandable. There are vowel shifts, like when the Germans say "au", the Yiddish is read as "oy". But the vowel shifts are mostly systematic, so you just follow the local convention. I add some accents over the vowels when there is an ambiguity in the vowel shift, but it ends up looking just like German.
And so I'm wondering: how hard would it be to do the same for Dutch? Like, they say "hoos" and write "huis", but they could just as well write "haus" and still pronounce it as "hoos". Or could they? In other words, would the shifts be systemic and predictable, so that it would make perfect sense to transport the German spellings over?
I hope I've made the question clear and I'm interested in what people would think who know both German and Dutch.
