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Yas, bud eef eye spel mai wordz deeferant from dah standard, I alzo half bullpoop. Uncodified, but bullpoop. Spelling matters. There are official spellings for words. Pronounciation is another matter. Cripes, English is the greatest example I know of a language where words are correctly/properly spelled a "standard" way, often based on how they were pronounced hundreds of years ago, then pronounced multiple ways, with multiple dialects. Witness a word like "night." The "gh" actually was pronounced "way back when." I can make the sound, but I wouldn't know how to write it. It doesn't exist in English anymore, except as a spelling holdover. It's all more about spelling than pronounciation. A given Chinese character, is a syllable. That is then "properly transcribed" to the romanized alphabet by an internationally recognized system, and admittedly based on its Mandarin form. Mandarin is itself a standard.

I'm talking standards and spelling. You're talking pronounciation. (I say tomato, and you say tomato.) It's still spelled tomato, not towmateoh or towmahtow, etc.

We were indeed advised not to address each other. Cerainly on the subject of political views, we have both have "a control issue." I would like to think we both value each other enough as individuals that we can be civil to each other on other topics. I don't disagree with what you've written at all. You are 100% correct. But, there's a reason for the codified bullpoop, which is "where I am at." Oh for the days of Chaucer when there were no rules nor standards for English.

(And that reminds me of a Michael Wood documentary on Shakespeare. He was reading a contemporary court record of Shakespeare's troop arriving for a performance. He was amused by how Shakespeare's name was recorded, and pointed it out. "Look. One can just imagine a fine Scottish fellow writing it out...Shaksbeard performed for the court.") Until the last several hundred years, the English themselves didn't worry about their spelling. Then, we all got standards (and crappy grades in school...)

Which is why there really were no particularly good systems for transcription until both sides got "anal" about their standards. And it's still not perfect, by any means, and for the reasons you've given. The bullpoop had to be codified. Chaos, or codified bullpoop. One is at least helpful to a degree in permitting communication.