Yet Another English Spelling Reform Thread

[Melteor]

The problem with spelling reforms that tie a letter to schwa is that it's never used consistently (perhaps because phonologically, unstressed schwa in English varies with stressed full vowels, usually) – so you've got a few places there like 'as' or 'was' that I think should be spelt with a schwa rather than a full vowel.

This particular one also suffers because you use y for two or three different things: you've got the offglide in the diphthongs, as well as schwa, and /ʌ/, which at least for me is not a schwa. And is certainly nothing like [j].

also i guess it doesn't help when I really don't have a diphthong for /i/ or /u/ and I find renditions that group them with diphthongs hard to read. or really anything that groups rhotics and non-rhotics together. RP, not British.

Well, if I made a spelling reform it would be for my dialect. I like the approach for British English (but I think <yu> for /ju/ should be <iu>). I think the vowels should have collateral forms for showing rapid speech and it's vowel reductions. Word stress may need to be shown; it makes sense because it could be key to figuring out what vowels in a word can, are or did (not) reduce.

I would suggest <u> for /V ~ @/ and <r> for /r ~ @'/ which is fine for my rhotic dialect. I would also indicate schwa in off glides. I would use the apostrophe to drop the following phoneme/grapheme, and double it or use a quote to drop the following two phonemes/graphemes. Maybe use another apostrophe later in the word to show what consonant is left, or diaeresis over any inserted or reduced-form vowel. I would use <-> for the glottal stop but that's phonetic...at least it looks like the cross of 't'. <x> is /S/ and palatalization across morphemes merges the two words together and and sticks a 'x' in between. /Z/ represented by <zx>, /dZ/ is <dx> and /tS/ is <tx>.

"I can..." = <Ai k'eun>
I would not have = I'd'n't've = <Ai "wood n'ot "heuv> I actually have two or three ways of saying this contraction, with <eu> staying the same or becoming a central vowel, in addition to schwa. I think this is just free variation. Notice how the off glide breaks up and is just the schwa.
"put your" = 'putcher' = <pootxi'or>

'Ear' is <ir> and 'year' is <iir>.

Eh...maybe it would be better to look at long/short vowels in different dialects?

Edit: Wow this is ugly. I like zomp's better.

Is it possible to match phoneme to grapheme to phoneme across dialects, erring on the side of conservatism while marking in dialects what vowels are supposed to rhyme due to mergers? It might be possible to mark vowels that devoice, or turn to schwa or schwi, with different diacritics, or use some other convention.

[Haplogy]

If i were to make a spélliŋ rééform of Íŋglish, it wood próbablee look sómthiŋ like dhis. Altérenatavlee, i kood uze <ng> for <ŋ>, but i am not vérree fond of dhat idéé. Seemz réédabel eenúf, rite? Olso, i would looz dhe <h> in dhe dígeraf <ch>, beekúz <c> iz not uzed for ánneethiŋ else.

EDIT: Olso, máyebee wee kood uze <nh> instéd of <ŋ> for /ŋ/, or wood dhat bee ambíguas?

[Nortaneous]

yff y7 eein7 breouk, deoun7 fycks y7. and if it is, only fix the parts that actually are broken.

[finlay]

If i were to make a spélliŋ rééform of Íŋglish, it wood próbablee look sómthiŋ like dhis. Altérenatavlee, i kood uze <ng> for <ŋ>, but i am not vérree fond of dhat idéé. Seemz réédabel eenúf, rite? Olso, i would looz dhe <h> in dhe dígeraf <ch>, beekúz <c> iz not uzed for ánneethiŋ else.

EDIT: Olso, máyebee wee kood uze <nh> instéd of <ŋ> for /ŋ/, or wood dhat bee ambíguas?

Careful with your English vowels. Idea, seems, and enough all have different vowels for the one you've marked the same. and you spelt would differently to itself. And 'anything' would have to be respelt enything, and something as sumthing, if you want to actually match the correct vowel.

[ol bofosh]

Muy own speling riifòm lôoks luyk dhis. Uy yoozd dhê list ov fênetiks in muy Spanish-Inglish dicshôonèrii, sow uy think it haz RP buyês.
My own spelling reform looks like this. I used the list of phonetics in my Spanish-English dictionary, so I think it has RP bias.

[Melteor]

Yes, this thread is dead, but I have a respelling for English, so why not post it here?

I read the very interesting blogpost by Geoff Lindsey where he reanalysed the British vowel inventory. So I had to make a spelling system based on that analysis.

Would it be possible to reanalyze the diphthongs ending in /w/ as ending in <L> due to loss of final-L as he mentioned in some places? I see you've done that with the letters that have r-liaison as he calls it.

[communistplot]

This reminds me of an idea for a standardised orthography of NYE that I'd had, primarily based off continental Eurolangs.

Wat yu du iz put de batte on de tos än den yu spred de jeli, dis mex foe a delishis brekfis.
[wəʔ juʊ̯ duʊ̯ ɪz pʊʔ də bəɾə ɔn də toʊ̯s æn dɛn juʊ̯ spʋɛʔ də d͡ʒɛli dɪs meɪ̯k͡s fɔəʋə dɛlɪʃɪs bʋɛkfɪs]
What you do is put the butter on the toast and then you spread the jelly, this makes for a delicious breakfast.

[TaylorS]

Ai wudd mek Inglesh spelling lukk mor djermannick ann also mor morfofonimick. Wåt dås evvriwån þinck abaut ðiss?

[Jipí]

God, why does everyone always want to reintroduce thorn and eth? And ash and a-ring. German, Low German, Dutch, Luxembourgish, and Frisian lack all that, and they're English's closest relatives. If you want to make it look more Germanic and stay reasonable, I'd look at West Germanic orthographies, not North Germanic.

[ol bofosh]

This reminds me of an idea for a standardised orthography of NYE that I'd had, primarily based off continental Eurolangs.

Wat yu du iz put de batte on de tos än den yu spred de jeli, dis mex foe a delishis brekfis.
[wəʔ juʊ̯ duʊ̯ ɪz pʊʔ də bəɾə ɔn də toʊ̯s æn dɛn juʊ̯ spʋɛʔ də d͡ʒɛli dɪs meɪ̯k͡s fɔəʋə dɛlɪʃɪs bʋɛkfɪs]
What you do is put the butter on the toast and then you spread the jelly, this makes for a delicious breakfast.

Uy down't luyk dhê uydiê ov pôoting jelii on towst. Uy prêfè jam. But dhen, uym British.

[Melteor]

Okay, I'm still playing around with this orthography for Standard British (not Estuary or Cockney) English, and I have some new ideas so here you go. I have taken most ideas from Grunnen's stuff that I liked and added a little bit of my own. If anybody actually speaks StBr please give me your input.

http://englishspeechservices.com/blog/?p=1795

-(Vr) indicates length as an extension of dropping R and smoothing out the vowel to lose final schwa.
-Geoff Lindsey doesn't include <ur> /uu/ in one of his charts but does for another.
-According to Geoff's chart again, the vowel for LOT is ɔ, but he includes it in the series with /ɑj/ and /ɑɑ/ <ar>. I've taken the liberty of putting LOT in with /oj/ and /oo/ and using <o> to represent it. I hope [ɔ o ɔɔ oo] aren't distinctive in StBr. If so I need to use one or two more vowel symbols.
-I've also chosen to represent the series with /a ɑj au ɑɑ/ with <a ay aw ar> like Grunnen's scheme. If /aa/ ever cropped up I think I would represent it with <aa>, maybe because it's long it should get a liaison R at the end, so <aar>?
-I represent schwa with <c> which has the advantage of looking a lot like 'e' and 'o' from ordinary English orthography, so some resemblance is maintained. On the other hand digraphs such as 'ch' no longer work from ordinary English orthography, so I make productive use of <sh> /ʃ/ and make <tsh> /tʃ/. English borrowing <zh> is /ʒ/ in some borrowed foreign words, but then <j dzh> for /dʒ/.
-<th dh> for /θ ð/
-I'm not entirely familiar with modern StBr. The resource I used for it supposedly was a little outdated i.e. Geoff Lindsey says that /ɪə/ is disfavored for /ɪjə/ in 'ear' and 'beer'. Also, [ɒ] was favored over [ɔ o] in short words like 'hot', in which it seems Geoff had just /ɔ/. Geoff also conflates /ʌ ə/ which I think is fair, because isn't primary stress what distinguishes these two? And that's lexically determined. Likewise I've kept schwer written where it would've been historically, as an aid to show liaison, if not necessarily vowel length, and also to keep /ʌ ɜɜ/ separate.
-in addition to the apostrophe I was thinking of marking reduced vowels with an acute accent. This might help in marking contractions or reductions of other vowels to schwa in a closer to speech solution English writing has been lacking, that matches the deletion of consonants in contractions. It matches the idea of transcribing dialect.
-In addition there is some variation between schwa and the kit vowel in certain environments. By marking schwa that is reduced I mean to show that it could be KIT in another context or with a different speaker. So there are the additional letters <ć í íy úw> for instantiated reduced schwa and schwih, but also schwee and schwoo. The i-vowel in 'decimal' would be written with either, though convention would suggest using í for the most part. This is the alternative of making one archiphoneme for the two. I don't know if StBr has the other reduced vowels like GA, but marking them with one accent would serve the same purpose since they all alternate with schwa. The KIT vowel weirds me out, there seems to be something going on inside words and at the ends, and there's a reduced form inside and possibly on the end of words. I was considering breaking it into two forms with <i y> rather than have the diphthong <iy>, so that in a stressed word-internal position you would only have one or the other but not a digraph, and I may yet do that, because it allows you to write long /ii/ which you can't write now. <u> at the end of words like 'into' is similar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_and ... unded_area
-Likewise, the aesthetic of using digraphs has freed up the space above vowels to indicate things like tonality and accent. I'm also playing with a punctuation that closely matches turntaking in conversation, which traditional typesetting obscures somewhat by giving too many hints about what's to come, and so betraying the dynamic. That's ongoing.
tl;dr
Thanks for the idea Grunnen! I didn't change much. -_-; 'c' looks too much like a vowel to not be one.


The vowels:

/ɪj/ <iy> miyt (meat and meet)
/ɛj/ <ey> keyk (cake)
/ɑj/ <ay> taym (time)
/ɔj/ <oy> toy (toy)

/əː/ <cr> thcrst (thirst)
/ɑː/ <ar> kar (car), farst (fast), parm (palm)
/ɔː/ <or> mor (more)
/ɛː/ <er> ster (stair)
/u:/ <ur> kyur (cure)

/aw/ <aw> mawth (mouth)
/əw/ <cw> grcw (grow)
/ɵw/ <uw> duw (do)

/ɪ/ <i> fit (fit)
/ɛ/ <e> pet (pet)
/a/ <a> pat (pat)
/ə/ <c> lck (luck)
/ɵ/ <u> buk (book)
/ɔ/ <o> bot (bot)

The consonants

As is, but:
/ʃ/ <sh> ship (ship)
/ʒ/ <zh> mezhcr (measure)
/tʃ/ <tsh> tship (chip)
/dʒ/ <dzh j> Jon Dzhon (John)
/ð/ <dh> dhc (the)
/?/ <-> c-cw (uh-oh)

The North Wind and the Sun:

Dhc North Wind and dhc scn wcr dispyuwting witsh wcz dhc strongcr, win a travlcr keym clong in ć worm klcwk.
Dhey cgriyd dhat dhc wcn huw fcrst scksiydid in meyking dhc travlcr teyk hiz klcwk of shud biy kcnsidcrd strongcr dhan dhiy cdhcr.
Dhen dhc North Wind bluw az hard az 'iy kud, bct dhc mor hiy bluw dhc mor klcwsliy did dhc travlcr fcwld hiz klcwk crawnd him;
and at larst dhc North Wind geyv cp thiy ctimpt. Dhin dhc Scn shaynd awt wormliy, and imiydiyitliy dhc travlcr tuk of his klcwk.
And scw dhc North Wind wcz cwblayjd tć kcnfes dhat dhc Scn wcz dhc strongcr cv dhc tuw.


Edit: yeah well reading it, thcrst looks enough like therst=thirst for me to be happy. I think the biggest problem is <dh> which people already know lexically so it's weird to make the distinction in writing.

[Jipí]

No. Using <c> for /ə/ just plainly doesn't work. It goes right against the sound values usually associated with certain letters (c = /k s ts tʃ~c/ usually).

Dhə North Wind and dhə sən wər dispyuwting witsh wəz dhə strongər, win a travlər keym əlong in ə́ worm kləwk.
Dhey əgriyd dhat dhə wən huw fərst səksiydid in meyking dhə travlər teyk hiz kləwk of shud biy kənsidərd strongər dhan dhiy ədhər.
Dhen dhə North Wind bluw az hard az 'iy kud, bət dhə mor hiy bluw dhə mor kləwsliy did dhə travlər fəwld hiz kləwk ərawnd him;
and at larst dhə North Wind geyv əp thiy ətimpt. Dhen dhə Sən shaynd awt wormliy, and imiydiyitliy dhə travlər tuk of his kləwk.
And səw dhə North Wind wəz əwblayjd tə́ kənfes dhat dhə Sən wəz dhə strongər əv dhə tuw.

Actually, it kind of reminds me of romanizations of languages like Thai or Khmer. But it's still an eyesore for English.

[Melteor]

No. Using <c> for /ə/ just plainly doesn't work. It goes right against the sound values usually associated with certain letters (c = /k s ts tʃ~c/ usually).

Dhə North Wind and dhə sən wər dispyuwting witsh wəz dhə strongər, win a travlər keym əlong in ə́ worm kləwk.
Dhey əgriyd dhat dhə wən huw fərst səksiydid in meyking dhə travlər teyk hiz kləwk of shud biy kənsidərd strongər dhan dhiy ədhər.
Dhen dhə North Wind bluw az hard az 'iy kud, bət dhə mor hiy bluw dhə mor kləwsliy did dhə travlər fəwld hiz kləwk ərawnd him;
and at larst dhə North Wind geyv əp thiy ətimpt. Dhen dhə Sən shaynd awt wormliy, and imiydiyitliy dhə travlər tuk of his kləwk.
And səw dhə North Wind wəz əwblayjd tə́ kənfes dhat dhə Sən wəz dhə strongər əv dhə tuw.

Actually, it kind of reminds me of romanizations of languages like Thai or Khmer. But it's still an eyesore for English.

Well the dh digraph is kind of awkward for people who aren't used to it.

Thc North Wind and thc scn wcr dispyuwting witsh wcz thc strongcr, win a travlcr keym clong in ć worm klcwk.
They cgriyd that thc wcn huw fcrst scksiydid in meyking thc travlcr teyk hiz klcwk of shud biy kcnsidcrd strongcr than thiy cthcr.
Thin thc North Wind bluw az hard az 'iy kud, bct thc mor hiy bluw thc mor klcwsliy did thc travlcr fcwld hiz klcwk crawnd him;
and at larst thc North Wind geyv cp thiy ctimpt. Thin thc Scn shaynd awt wormliy, and imiydiyitliy thc travlcr tuk of his klcwk.
And scw dhc North Wind wcz cwblayjd tć kcnfes that thc Scn wcz thc strongcr cv thc tuw.

[Pole, the]

Oh, we don't need so drastic changes to the orthography. I'd even say that the changes ought to be just cosmetic, so that it could be read exactly as it is now.

‹a á ā å ä› /æ ɑ eɪ ɔ ə/
‹e é è ē ë ě› /ɛ eɪ ɪ iː ə -/
‹i í ï ī ǐ› /ɪ iː ɪ̩ aɪ -/
‹y ȳ› /ɪ~iː aɪ/ (not before a vowel)
‹o ó ō ò ô ŏ ő ǫ ö› /ɒ ɔː oʊ ʊ uː a iː wʌ ə/
‹u ú û ü› /ʊ juː uː ə/
‹w ẃ ŵ› /ʊ juː uː/ (not before a vowel)

‹er ir ur› [ɜr ɜr ɜr] (differeciated in some dialects)

‹a e o› are mute after another vowel

Consonants - as they are.


Thë Nórth Wind änd thë Sün wërě dispúting which wäs thë strongër, when ä travëlër cāme älong wrappěd in ä wårm clōak.
Théy ägrēed thät thë ǫně whô first süccēedëd in māking thë travëlër tākě his clōak off shòuld bē cönsidërěd strongër thän thè öthër.
Then thë Nórth Wind blěŵ äs hárd äs hē còuld, büt thë mórě hē blěŵ thë mórě clōsěly did thë travëlër fōld his clōak ärŏund him;
and ät last thë Nórth Wind gāve üp thē ättempt. Then thë Sün shīněd ŏut wårmly änd immēdiätěly thë travëlër tòok off his clōak.
Änd sō thë Nórth Wind wäs öblīgěd tö cönfess thät thë Sün wäs thë strongër öf thë twô.

[Jipí]

Well the dh digraph is kind of awkward for people who aren't used to it.

Woah, spot on! That was exactly my point!!!!
Did you actually read what I wrote? Because I doubt it. Now excuse me while I facepalm some.

[Whimemsz]

All of these proposals are terrible. I wish people would read the first post of this thread. I'll repeat some of what's been said, though:

(1) English spelling does not NEED a MAJOR reform. Certainly there's plenty of irregularity in the spelling system, but a lot less than many people think (see Zompist's essay that's been referenced several times). And in any case there's a difference between regularization of certain egregious irregularities/anachronisms (e.g. I wouldn't have a problem with going back to "dett(e)" instead of "debt"), and the creation of a completely phonemic spelling system for English. A completely phonemic spelling system being a poor idea because:

(2) It's not necessary. "Silent" final vowels plus a handful of digraphs already provide a fairly ingenious way of allowing English spelling to represent a large number of vowel phonemes. There is no problem to be revamped (except I guess for spergy linguistics nerds like us who can't bear a system where each phoneme is not represented by ONE LETTER AND ONE LETTER ONLY and each letter does not represent ONE PHONEME AND ONE PHONEME ONLY). And even if you still want a phonemic spelling system, it won't work because:

(3) English dialects vary widely in pronunciation, especially in the way of vowels. Essentially, the current spelling system represents English diaphones fairly effectively, though not in the case of some more recent developments like the trap-bath split and Canadian raising. But the upshot of this is a conundrum: the more "phonemic" you make a spelling reform, the LESS applicable it will be to English as a whole! (because the phonemes of one English dialect do not correspond perfectly to the phonemes of another one). If I make a reformed English spelling based on my own dialect, it would feature the father-bother merger, the cot-caught merger, the horse-hoarse merger, the mary-marry-merry merger, the wine-whine merger, etc. (and that's not counting subphonemic changes like intervocalic /t d/-flapping, which some people might indicate!) Some of my neighbors' versions would feature the pin-pen merger. Another person's might be from a non-rhotic dialect which vocalizes coda /l/ and merges the dental and labiodental fricatives. ALL of these reforms would underrepresent someone else's dialect, and thus not really be a reform of English spelling at all, but an imposition of the representation of a single dialect's phonemic system onto the language as a whole. So:

(4) Any spelling reform proposal that isn't purely for shits and giggles* has to either be very moderate, or to confront this very serious problem, but few seem to. This is of course ignoring the more practical stuff like whether anyone would want to adopt the new system, the massive cost of changing to the new system, and other familiar arguments.


*It's unclear how many of the proposals in this thread, and the many others which crop up periodically, are truly serious, and how many are just for shits and giggles. I'm not sure whether the proposers are even always aware. But I'm tired of this crap, especially since the first post in this very thread already pointed most of this out already!

[el flokratisson]

Ei ßink se inglisch spelling schutt bie es komprehentzibbel ent lodschickel es possebbel. Ett se moment sehr ahr männie inglisch wörtz witsch inkluhtz anpronauntzt letters leik se 'k' in 'know' vor exempel. Biekoss Inglisch iss se juniwörssel länguitsch ent nobaddie schutt hähf problems wiss lörning Inglish.

I admit that the upper version isn't the best possibility for a English Spelling Reform , but I think this would be great:

Ai sink ðı Englısh spelling shutt bi aes comprıhensıbl aent lojıcel aes posıbıl. Aet ðı mohmınt ðer ar maenni Englısh woerts wıch ıncluhts anpronaunst laetırs laic ðı 'k' ın 'know' for exaempl. Bicås Englısh ıs ðı yunivoersıl laenguıch aent nohbadi shutt haev problıms vıs loerning Englısh.

[Whimemsz]

No, that's also terrible.* You didn't even get English phonology right. And read my post. And the first post in this thread.


*Assuming you were serious. It actually just looks like English if it were spelled like a stereotypical German accent, so maybe it's just a joke...

[ol bofosh]

I've just been reminded of a funny spelling reform by the EU (actually, it was a joke). I'll try to find it...

This has some similar ones, but not the one I was thinking of: http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j31/satires.php

[Melteor]

I'm making a Beatles rhyming dictionary. Obviously it deserves its own orthography.

[Grunnen]

All of these proposals are terrible. I wish people would read the first post of this thread. I'll repeat some of what's been said, though:

Well, you're free to think they're all terrible, but that's subjective.

(1) English spelling does not NEED a MAJOR reform. Certainly there's plenty of irregularity in the spelling system, but a lot less than many people think (see Zompist's essay that's been referenced several times). And in any case there's a difference between regularization of certain egregious irregularities/anachronisms (e.g. I wouldn't have a problem with going back to "dett(e)" instead of "debt"), and the creation of a completely phonemic spelling system for English. A completely phonemic spelling system being a poor idea because:

No it doesn't. We could also consider each English word as being represented by a character, that historically developed from an alphabetic spelling representing the pronounciation current at the time of codification. And even if we don't look at it that way, we don't need to change anything.

(2) It's not necessary. "Silent" final vowels plus a handful of digraphs already provide a fairly ingenious way of allowing English spelling to represent a large number of vowel phonemes. There is no problem to be revamped (except I guess for spergy linguistics nerds like us who can't bear a system where each phoneme is not represented by ONE LETTER AND ONE LETTER ONLY and each letter does not represent ONE PHONEME AND ONE PHONEME ONLY). And even if you still want a phonemic spelling system, it won't work because:

Indeed, the system has a fairly regular underpinning. Also, what's a phoneme exactly? So that correspondence you're talking about probably can't be established. That doesn't mean of course, that it's not possible to make a spelling with a more intuitive correspondence between the spoken and written form of a word.

(3) English dialects vary widely in pronunciation, especially in the way of vowels. Essentially, the current spelling system represents English diaphones fairly effectively, though not in the case of some more recent developments like the trap-bath split and Canadian raising. But the upshot of this is a conundrum: the more "phonemic" you make a spelling reform, the LESS applicable it will be to English as a whole! (because the phonemes of one English dialect do not correspond perfectly to the phonemes of another one). If I make a reformed English spelling based on my own dialect, it would feature the father-bother merger, the cot-caught merger, the horse-hoarse merger, the mary-marry-merry merger, the wine-whine merger, etc. (and that's not counting subphonemic changes like intervocalic /t d/-flapping, which some people might indicate!) Some of my neighbors' versions would feature the pin-pen merger. Another person's might be from a non-rhotic dialect which vocalizes coda /l/ and merges the dental and labiodental fricatives. ALL of these reforms would underrepresent someone else's dialect, and thus not really be a reform of English spelling at all, but an imposition of the representation of a single dialect's phonemic system onto the language as a whole. So:

Yeah, so as long as you want to have a spelling that's readable for all speakers of English you can't change a lot of stuff. At some point however, people will probably start to feel that 'English' isn't really 'one language' anymore. And I think it would be interesting to see how people would then want to change their spelling to reflect their distinctness. But this might take another few hundred years of course.

(4) Any spelling reform proposal that isn't purely for shits and giggles* has to either be very moderate, or to confront this very serious problem, but few seem to. This is of course ignoring the more practical stuff like whether anyone would want to adopt the new system, the massive cost of changing to the new system, and other familiar arguments.

Obviously I don't know about the others, but mine just for fun, as an exercise to develop a spelling system for a linguistic variant that doesn't have one yet (that is, there is no spelling for Standard Southern [South-Eastern] British Enlish).

*It's unclear how many of the proposals in this thread, and the many others which crop up periodically, are truly serious, and how many are just for shits and giggles. I'm not sure whether the proposers are even always aware. But I'm tired of this crap, especially since the first post in this very thread already pointed most of this out already!

You don't have to read it. And really, it can be fun to make up a spelling for some random language. Even more if you actually speak it. And better still if you can base it on an interesting new analysis of the sound system. Well, that's what I think anyway.

Okay, I'm still playing around with this orthography for Standard British (not Estuary or Cockney) English, and I have some new ideas so here you go. I have taken most ideas from Grunnen's stuff that I liked and added a little bit of my own. If anybody actually speaks StBr please give me your input.

Thanks. Although I still think that neither of us has found a really good solution for representing /@/. In the end, it's of course more a matter of being used to a specific standard. If you constantly read <c> or <y> representing /@/, you'll get used to it and start to like it.

[brandrinn]

Maybe this was mentioned already, but I would be immensely grateful if English spelling would just pick one of the set <-ible, -able> and stick with it, instead of making me take a complete stab in the dark every time.

[GreenBowTie]

Maybe this was mentioned already, but I would be immensely grateful if English spelling would just pick one of the set <-ible, -able> and stick with it, instead of making me take a complete stab in the dark every time.

agreed; furthermore, it's irritating that spellings that indicate etymology often tend to obscure rather than reveal relationships between words: sustain/sustenance, abstain/abstinence, despair/desperate, repeat/repetition. a decent place to start with a spelling reform would be to fix these kinds of things first
sustane/sustanence
abstane/abstanence
despare/desparate
repete/repetition

God, why does everyone always want to reintroduce thorn and eth? And ash and a-ring. German, Low German, Dutch, Luxembourgish, and Frisian lack all that, and they're English's closest relatives. If you want to make it look more Germanic and stay reasonable, I'd look at West Germanic orthographies, not North Germanic.

I don't support the reintroduction of them but this is not a very compelling argument. How on Earth are languages that don't have those sounds good examples for how to represent those sounds??



at any rate, this is something that I've thought about a little bit, though never worked out to any complete extent. It seems like the best method for a reform would be to tweak the current system rather than come up with a whole new orthography. And as far as differing dialects go, I think an important distinction to make is between systematic and non-systematic differences; that is, differences that represent whole patterns, vs. differences that are particular to a specific word. A systematic difference would be the pronunciation/deletion of the "y" sound in words like "dew" and "tube"; a non-systematic difference would be like the aforementioned "bury" as rhyming either with "hairy" or "furry". Non-systematic differences would honestly probably best be allowed to be spelled however they are generally pronounced in the country or region (we already tolerate spelling differences between different countries anyway so this doesn't seem like too huge a deal to me). Systematic differences could be represented by different spellings. As an example, words that are /u/ across all dialects could be spelled <oo>, words that are /ju/ in some areas and /u/ in others could be <ui>, and words that are /ju/ everywhere could be <u...e>. So "rude" would be <rood>, "Tuesday" would be <Tuisday>, and "cute" would be <cute>. (I'm not advocating these specific spellings or whatever, just illustrating the concept.) So most dialects will have multiple ways of spelling a sound, but everything will be able to be read correctly in your own dialect based on the spelling.

[Kilanie]

The biggest problem with an English spelling reform is the diversity of English dialects. Until English is recognized as a language family rather than one language (and I'm not saying it is right now, just when it becomes one), any drastic changes to what represents what sound are going to be impossible. I would recommend limiting a spelling reform to getting rid of superfluous letters.

There are already a few widely-used non-standard spellings that do this- nite for night, tho for though, etc. I'd say make those standard.

More spellings that could be changed quite easily:
1. The <l> in could and would.
2. The silent <e> at the end of words when it's doing nothing to modify the sound of the previous vowel- so "defensive" becomes "defensiv", but "despite" retains the <e> because it indicates a different pronunciation from what "despit" would.
3. Silent <gh>. Get rid of it. In cases like "knight", it could be respelled to fit the VCe rule. Thus knite.
4. Silent <k> in knife, knight, anywhere else it may be.

There are a number of small changes like this that could go a long way in improving English spelling without wrecking that much aesthetic appeal.

I was going to do the Sun and Moon story, but I realized it would be basically untouched except for could > coud and possibly attempt > atempt/immediately > imediately.

[finlay]

With silent k, what do you do with 'know'? Now? No? These are already separate words. I mean yeah you could have a homograph as well as a homophone if you changed to 'no', but I think here it's useful to keep the spellings that are lexical or morphological.

I think I largely agree on silent gh, though. It's too unpredictable.

Plus, English has a precedent for having divergent spellings in different countries, although it's only for less common words, in general. Within reason, I don't see why we couldn't have more... and conversely, I reckon we should all just adopt one kind of spelling or the other, because at the moment the situation is a bit ridiculous and annoying, and tends to blow up into pointless arguments over the merits of one system or another.