3 ms·

You'd first have to decide which dialect of English would form the basis of the new spelling, which would be politically infeasible even if limited to those of

You'd first have to decide which dialect of English would form the basis of the new spelling, which would be politically infeasible even if limited to those of the USA. By allowing (for example) the word "oil" to be pronounced as both "oiul" and "al", we've avoided the question of who is speaking "correctly". After that, you'd need either new letters or a lot of diacritics if you want to avoid multiple readings of the same word. The letter "a" can be pronounced something like three or four different ways, and clearing that up would cause written English to resemble Pinyin (or maybe Croatian). When choosing the new writing system, try to keep existing computer support in mind or nobody will be able to backport your new system to ASCII-only text.

tsimionescu 4y ago
So to avoid some difficulties, let's keep spelling "iland" with an s because someone thought it would be better for a germanic word to have a Latin-like spelling. There are many many reforms that can be done to English spelling that would simplify it tremendously without making it fully phonetic. Apart from reversing some of the silly forced latinization, you could get rid of some of the more bizarre letter combinations, like "ough" (could be replaced with, say, ow/off based on word). And sure, even here, there may be some dialectical differences in some words, but they would be rare. No one pronounces "though" like "thoff", so why not write it "thow"?
- zozbot234 4y ago
  The most likely-to-be-successful spelling reforms are those that native English speakers are already testing in the field. So why not though -> tho, and through -> thru?
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    Sure, that's even better.
- 867-5309 4y ago
  >get rid of some of the more bizarre this may have been a case for their introduction in the first place
mostlylurks 4y ago
> You'd first have to decide which dialect of English would form the basis of the new spelling You would not. You could instead make the rather sensible choice of allowing the written forms of distinct, increasingly divergent, dialects to be different from one another. There are several clusters of similar but differing written standards existing side-by-side in Europe, and they don't pose any major challenges to communication. And in some language regions, it's quite common for people to write in their local dialects in informal contexts instead of the standard variety, which also doesn't pose any major challenges to communication. There is very little actual necessity for a single unified standard variety. By the time the dialects would have diverged far enough for there to be issues in communicating due to distinct written forms, perhaps a few centuries from now for English, the alternative of having a unified written form would necessarily mean that to be literate at all, you'd have to learn a foreign language (the unified standard), which would be the worse situation to find oneself in, and it would probably be easier to first acquire literacy in your native language, and then learn the standard as a second language.
housecarpenter 4y ago
It depends what you mean by "simplification". The fact that phonics is something that can be taught and can be helpful for learning to read indicates that English does have phonetic spelling rules, inconsistently applied as they may be. It would be possible for a spelling reform to preserve the existing spelling conventions of written English while simply making the rules more consistent. There aren't really that many outright ambiguities in written English. Sure, <a> can indicate a bunch of different sounds, but it's usually possible to tell what sound it is from the surrounding letters---e.g. it'll be "short" (as in <cat>) if it's in an orthographically closed syllable, and "long" (as in <name>) if it's in an orthographically open syllable. The trouble is that we have words like <give> and <many> which are straight-up exceptions to the usual rules about open vs. closed syllables (<many> also has an exceptional sound value for the <a>). Respelling these occasional exceptions (I'd go for <giv>, <menny>) might make English spelling considerably less confusing while still preserving its basic "look and feel".
- zozbot234 4y ago
  I mostly agree with your rules of thumb, but an incremental spelling reform should also (1) not leave native speakers guessing as to what you're trying to say, and (2) preserve morphological relationships as far as practical. So wrt. your examples of reformed spellings, I think I'd prefer *givve (compare gave, given etc.) and *menye - which is even an attested spelling, if only in Middle English. (The -ye ending is a bit weird, but is arguably the best fit for the final /i/ in /'mɛni/. -y and -ie just seem too confusing.)

tsimionescu 4y ago

So to avoid some difficulties, let's keep spelling "iland" with an s because someone thought it would be better for a germanic word to have a Latin-like spelling. There are many many reforms that can be done to English spelling that would simplify it tremendously without making it fully phonetic. Apart from reversing some of the silly forced latinization, you could get rid of some of the more bizarre letter combinations, like "ough" (could be replaced with, say, ow/off based on word). And sure, even here, there may be some dialectical differences in some words, but they would be rare. No one pronounces "though" like "thoff", so why not write it "thow"?

zozbot234 4y ago
The most likely-to-be-successful spelling reforms are those that native English speakers are already testing in the field. So why not though -> tho, and through -> thru?
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  Sure, that's even better.
867-5309 4y ago
>get rid of some of the more bizarre this may have been a case for their introduction in the first place

mostlylurks 4y ago

> You'd first have to decide which dialect of English would form the basis of the new spelling You would not. You could instead make the rather sensible choice of allowing the written forms of distinct, increasingly divergent, dialects to be different from one another. There are several clusters of similar but differing written standards existing side-by-side in Europe, and they don't pose any major challenges to communication. And in some language regions, it's quite common for people to write in their local dialects in informal contexts instead of the standard variety, which also doesn't pose any major challenges to communication. There is very little actual necessity for a single unified standard variety. By the time the dialects would have diverged far enough for there to be issues in communicating due to distinct written forms, perhaps a few centuries from now for English, the alternative of having a unified written form would necessarily mean that to be literate at all, you'd have to learn a foreign language (the unified standard), which would be the worse situation to find oneself in, and it would probably be easier to first acquire literacy in your native language, and then learn the standard as a second language.

housecarpenter 4y ago

It depends what you mean by "simplification". The fact that phonics is something that can be taught and can be helpful for learning to read indicates that English does have phonetic spelling rules, inconsistently applied as they may be. It would be possible for a spelling reform to preserve the existing spelling conventions of written English while simply making the rules more consistent. There aren't really that many outright ambiguities in written English. Sure, <a> can indicate a bunch of different sounds, but it's usually possible to tell what sound it is from the surrounding letters---e.g. it'll be "short" (as in <cat>) if it's in an orthographically closed syllable, and "long" (as in <name>) if it's in an orthographically open syllable. The trouble is that we have words like <give> and <many> which are straight-up exceptions to the usual rules about open vs. closed syllables (<many> also has an exceptional sound value for the <a>). Respelling these occasional exceptions (I'd go for <giv>, <menny>) might make English spelling considerably less confusing while still preserving its basic "look and feel".

zozbot234 4y ago
I mostly agree with your rules of thumb, but an incremental spelling reform should also (1) not leave native speakers guessing as to what you're trying to say, and (2) preserve morphological relationships as far as practical. So wrt. your examples of reformed spellings, I think I'd prefer *givve (compare gave, given etc.) and *menye - which is even an attested spelling, if only in Middle English. (The -ye ending is a bit weird, but is arguably the best fit for the final /i/ in /'mɛni/. -y and -ie just seem too confusing.)