It's not obvious at all. But let's cut&paste some of your stuff: > `a` is for the sound `aaaahhhh`. That's great for words like 'father', 'fall', and 'dark'.

It's not obvious at all. But let's cut&paste some of your stuff: > `a` is for the sound `aaaahhhh`. That's great for words like 'father', 'fall', and 'dark'. But not for words like 'dad' and 'fat' and 'frank'. Or 'same' and 'lame'. So no, in English, 'a' is not the sound for 'aaaahhhh'. 'aaaahhhh' is just one of the various sounds for 'a'. In a lot of ways English is like those hieroglyphics you seem to hate so much, because you have to know the mapping between the words and how they are written. It probably doesn't feel like that to you, because you're used to it by now. If you really want phonetic spelling, you'll have to change the spelling of most English words. That is fine, but I think most people would find that much less appealing than using unicode. Your suggestion would then basically boil down to: "Hey, let's change the spelling of most English words you know, and also ban emojis!" I would prepare for lots of little upside-down hands with the thumb pointing down.