Surely we all know that English spelling is a mess. A lot of that is due to how nice we are in preserving the spelling of foreign words. There's no reason we couldn't adopt café as caffay, or cello as chello. But we didn't. Much of it is also due to the fact that we don't change the spelling of our native words as often as we should. We do occasionally; if we didn't, we'd fight with cnífas ond sƿeord instead of knives and swords. But there's no reason that can't change. I've been toying with the idea of writing the voiced th with a dh in informal situations. Dhat would take some getting used to, but it would let us know when to voice it, and when not to. Some of you may know that I have actually devised a system of writing phonetically, and it comes as naturally to me as our current methods. Énd if Ai dəun't wənt pípḷ tú ízəlí əndṙsténd wət Ai'm rəitiŋ, Ai yúz it ðen, alsəu! Of course, I don't want to spring such a wonderful system on people without warning. So here is how we could introduce it gradually… Year 1 - PH to F Of course, people will be very uncertain of this thing that is going to turn the world of English spelling quite upside-down. Thus, we must start off with a positive change. Just imagine how much quicker we could write if we wrote F instead of PH? Granted, it wouldn't make that much difference, but it's an improvement nonetheless. Year 3 - C to S or K We gave them a few years to get used to our first wonderful change, now we may introduse the sekond. Does it not make sense to merge the letter C with S and K? Where it has a so-kalled "soft" sound, we use S, where it has a "hard" sound, we kan use K. We won't take the letter off our keyboards, however, for we still have the konsonant kombination CH. Year 5 - QU to KW The reaktion when this change is first announsed kan hardly be kalled positive; somehow people think KW looks too ugly. But when we explain that on our keyboards, the kombination TH will take the place of Q, everyone kwikly understands the merit of this wonderful change. Year 6 - SH to C We didn't abandon the letter C, we just gave it a different sound! This could make everyone happy, bekause now we have an even more efficent writing system! Year 8 - CH to TC This bewildering tcange kan hopefully be explained to most people (though I have little hope for some others) by cowing them that the kluster CH korresponds kwite nisely to the way we would have pronounsed TSH before we tcanged SH to C. Makes perfekt sense, right? Year 10 - J to DJ Dear me, this tcandje is downright ridikulous! Why on earth would we take this beautifully simple letter and add a D before it? Wait until next year, and all will be made klear. Year 11 - ZH to J The publik is still irritated that we stukk a D before every okkurense of J, and the so kalled "soft" G. Kouldn't they see it koming? We are now tcandjing ZH to J, djust as SH has bekome C. Efficensy! Year 12 - Silent consonants removed Only sykos ever pronounsed the P, (wel, I'm not saying the Greeks were dum, but again, this is beside the point), and it doesn't take a nome to now that we really coud remove them. Our riting has improved again! Note, thou, this does not entail the redukcon of double konsonants, witc serves the purpose of determining wether vowels are cort or long. Year 13 - X to KS O dear, riting djust got that mutc harder. But, as with everything, we have our reasons, witc will be eksplained nekst year! Year 14 - Voiced TH to DH For one hole year we've had dhis annoying ekstra key on our keyboards, sitting dhere doing absolutely nothing. Well, dhis tcandje akkounts for dhat, bekause now we kan have a key (witc used to be X) for DH, witc we will always rekognize as voised. Dhat konfujon is now gone. Year 16 - Redistribution of specific letters By witc I mean, dhat it iz wize to make voised S bekome Z, and a host ov odher tcandjez like it. Instead ov riting a list ov hard-and-fast rulez, I think we kan onestly let dhe publik take kontrol. Az an obskure form prezents itself, dhe people themselvez wil korrekt it! Year 18 - Vocalic Y to I or EE Think ov it, all ov 18 yearz have passet sinse we started making our little modifikaconz, and bi now, dhey are used to understanding the lodjik behind theze reazonable tcandjez! So I think they'l handle dhis won djust fine. Cure, dhe letter Y az a vowel haz some historikal basis, but at dhis point it onlee kauzes konfujon. Be it no more! Year 20 - Y before long U (where applicable) Some timez, dhis won't appli, obviouslee, az in dhe word tune. (To Amerikanz.) But we kan finallee fiks wordz like kyute. Wonse dhis is enforsed, long U will now be the OO sound, witc iz eksaktlee wat we want. Year 21 - Marking long vowels Ī personalē prēfer using an akyūte aksent to mark long vowelz, but pēple woud probablē līke dhe makron better, sō wē call yūz it. Year 23 - Dropping the silent E!!! Wondrful - glorious! Dhe horribl sīlent E iz forevr vankwict! Nevrmor cal we be plegd with sutc komplēt yūslessness! And in ōnlē twentē-thrē yērz! Year 24 - Reducing double consonants!!! And dhe last ov dhe konsonantal doublz hav ben redūst! Izn't dhis sō mutc betr? Year 26 - Dotting syllabic consonants A silabik konsṅant iz won of L, R, N, and posiblī M, witc akculī haz no vowḷ sound bēfor it. Somtīmz wedhṙ or not it haz a vowḷ bēfor it varēz, but dhat's alrīt. Ī propōz dhat we dot lōwṙ-kās R and N with a dot abov; but dot L and al kapitḷ varēṅts bēlōw. Year 28 - The glorious Schwa! Az pṙ dhə Intṙnacṅḷ Fonetək Alfəbet, dhis sound coud bē reprəzentəd with Ʌ, bət pēpḷ līk əs ar mor yūst tū Ə, dhə cwa, az it əpērz in menē əv our wṙks dhat pṙtān tū fonetiks. Dōn't ask mē wer tū put it on ə kēbord, dhō. It had tū kəm səmtīm. Dhə kombənācṅ NG māks historikḷ sens, bət verē litḷ at dhis tīm. It kan bē nīslē rədūst tū dhə letṙ Ŋ. Dhis djəst kēps getiŋ betṙ and betṙ! Not cṙ wer it coud gō on our kēbordz, bət wətevṙ. And sins dhat's not sətc ə çūdj thiŋ, wē thrū in dhē ədhṙ litḷ (bət nesəsarē) tcāndj. If anēþiŋ haz historikḷ djəstifikācṅ, ðēz dū. Kan yū bəlēv ðat at wən point, wē akcəlē yūzd ðēz wəndṙfḷ letṙz? And əv kors, ðā alredē hav ə plās on ðə kēbord! Fixing the Vowel Mess (more or less optional) Wē'l rest and rēdjūvṅāt, ðen fiks ðə probləm əv ðə milenēəm… Ī'l kəvṙ ðə tcāndjəz in kwik səksecṅ. Year 35 - ?? Loŋ storē cort: ðə Ī frəm nīt (night) bēkəmz ƏI, ðat frəm wī (why) bēkəmz AI, əkros ðə bord. Ðə "cort" A, æz in kat (cat) and kow (cow), cæl bēkəm Æ. Ā iz næu EI; Ō iz ƏU; Ē iz Ī. Ðə sæund in man ēnd ðer (there), tceindjəz tū Ē. Ðæt in hors (horse) ēnd old tceindjəz tū Ō. Ar "cōrt" O æz in hot wī tceindj tū A. Ðə sæund in kaut (caught) witc iz in səm rīdjṅz distiŋkt, teiks əp ðə falən O. Ðə væuḷ in took ēnd put iz alweiz ritṅ U. Surely no one actually read that. But I found it quite enjoyable to pour out my burdened heart and propose how to fix our disgusting English spelling. And forgive me for not supplying much explanation about the vowel changes from Year 35 onward, but I really wanted this post to be of a manageable size. (Little joke there.) Besides the objection that this is way too confusing, the main objection will likely be that the phonetic transcription looks just plain ugly. Well, it does, but the truth of the matter is that the English language sounds little better than my transcription looks. When I say that, I'm not slamming English. I'm glad it's not pretty, for then it would doubtless be very long-winded. As it is, English is efficient, and I can think of no greater linguistic virtue than that. These changes do not provide a letter for every distinct sound, either. The L in milk is not the same as that in laugh, for example. But that's not the point, the point is to eliminate (or at least drastically reduce) confusion. Forgive me if I messed up a little in trying to enact the medial stages of this grand series of changes. As much as I am used to phonetic writing, I am not used to half-phonetic and half-not writing. If you read any of this post, (and since you're reading this, I'm assuming you did) I'd really like to know how far you got! If you made it all the way to Year 35 and understood everything, I'll have to put you in a sort of "Hall of Fame". You would deserve it, really. That, you can of course tell me in the comments section bīləu! Oops.
4 Comments
Hannah
8/2/2014 11:48:45 am
I read Years 1-14
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Ethan W.
6/29/2020 03:13:21 pm
I read years 1-26 and understood all of it except a few words.
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Sēra (if I read the vowel changes correctly)
10/4/2020 09:45:39 pm
I made it to the end, but I can't say I understood all of it. XD
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