Yes, that’s sounds similar to a “heritage speaker” situation - kids who grow in bilingual families can often speak fluently and without accent, but not be able to read or write at all (if language’s alphabet is different).
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Kind of.
In Australian English, we have short and long versions of the “a” in “cat” which just barely create a contrast in meaning: can with a long “a” is the one you drink from, but with a short “a” it’s the auxilliary verb of ability.
More generally, English had a Great Vowel Shift where long vowels began sounding nothing like short vowels, but once upon a time pairs like “bake” and “back”, “bede” and “bed”, “bite” and “bit”, “code” and “cod”, “brook” and “brock” had more or less the same vowel sound. They sound different now but they’re still spelled like they’re long and short versions of the same vowel because reasons.
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Darn it, I was hoping someone wouldn’t mention that. xP When I was fact-checking I saw Australian English still has that distinction but didn’t mention it since I didn’t want to muddy my argument. Completely forgot about the GVS.
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Muahaha… nobody expects an Australian with a linguistics degree…
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