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The problem with making spelling more phonetic is that not everyone pronounces English the same. Even a single country like the United States or the United King

The problem with making spelling more phonetic is that not everyone pronounces English the same. Even a single country like the United States or the United Kingdom counts a range of accents and dialects. A phonetic spelling is always going to be non-phonetic for some speakers.

pmoriarty 8y ago
"A phonetic spelling is always going to be non-phonetic for some speakers." Only if there is a single "correct" (or canonical) way to spell each word. If every speaker uses a phonetic alphabet to spell their words the way they speak them then there will be no problem reading them back phonetically. Now, understanding these phonetically spelled words might be a problem for some readers, but that's no different from the problem in understanding they'd have when they heard someone speak in a different accent.
- alangpierce 8y ago
  There's even plenty of precedent for the same word having different spellings based on region, like with color/colour. I imagine it would be similarly normal to learn that "tomahto" is the British spelling of "tomato" (or whatever it would end up being).
  - dsego 8y ago
    We have that in south slavic languages. For example this word meaning time (or weather) spoken and written differently based on dialect/language: vreme, vrime, vrijeme. [1] Maybe a regional spelling reform could lead to English starting to break apart into several different languages? [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialects_of_Serbo-Croatian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialects_of_Serbo-Croatian
- Zanni 8y ago
  Ugh, no. You'd gain the very minor benefit of being able to read in the author's dialect but at huge cost in reading speed. I cringe whenever an author forces an accent or dialect into their writing rather than simply noting that a character speaks with a particular accent. It forces me to read at the speed I can vocalize, which is about half my normal reading speed. I can see this being useful for specific cases but not as a general practice.

pmoriarty 8y ago

"A phonetic spelling is always going to be non-phonetic for some speakers." Only if there is a single "correct" (or canonical) way to spell each word. If every speaker uses a phonetic alphabet to spell their words the way they speak them then there will be no problem reading them back phonetically. Now, understanding these phonetically spelled words might be a problem for some readers, but that's no different from the problem in understanding they'd have when they heard someone speak in a different accent.

alangpierce 8y ago
There's even plenty of precedent for the same word having different spellings based on region, like with color/colour. I imagine it would be similarly normal to learn that "tomahto" is the British spelling of "tomato" (or whatever it would end up being).
- dsego 8y ago
  We have that in south slavic languages. For example this word meaning time (or weather) spoken and written differently based on dialect/language: vreme, vrime, vrijeme. [1] Maybe a regional spelling reform could lead to English starting to break apart into several different languages? [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialects_of_Serbo-Croatian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialects_of_Serbo-Croatian
Zanni 8y ago
Ugh, no. You'd gain the very minor benefit of being able to read in the author's dialect but at huge cost in reading speed. I cringe whenever an author forces an accent or dialect into their writing rather than simply noting that a character speaks with a particular accent. It forces me to read at the speed I can vocalize, which is about half my normal reading speed. I can see this being useful for specific cases but not as a general practice.