Is englis a phonetic language?

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In some cases, I am eager to use new dubblings in exchange of surplus letters.

e.g. alreddy, cupple, dubble, fassen, jossle, suttle, weppon, zellot.

But I don't want to hav new dubblings of "v" or voiced "s"(/z/,/Z/).

ex. endevor, heven, hevy, leven.
ex. mesure, plesant, plesure, tresure.

Doublings of final consonants should logically be eliminated as they are totally unnecessary eg:

Il, sel, sil, tel, til, wel, wil rather than ill, sell, sill, tell, till, well and will.

This happens in some polysyllabic words anyway, such as "until".

There is no reason to avoid doubling a "v", eg: hovver.

Voiced "s" is more difficult as double "s" suggests the sound is unvoiced. Afrikaans avoids this problem as "s" is always unvoiced as in English "sell" or "less", never as in "pleasant" or "pleasure".

>>Doublings of final consonants should logically be eliminated as they are totally unnecessary eg:

Il, sel, sil, tel, til, wel, wil rather than ill, sell, sill, tell, till, well and will. <<

Logically yes, but I would prefer the dubbled l's as long as they ar not misleading. I willingly admit that I am not so logical.

>>There is no reason to avoid doubling a "v", eg: hovver. <<

I spell "navvy" and "savvy" as they ar, but I would not spell "endevvor" or "hevvy", simply because I don't hav the currage to spell them that way.

>>Voiced "s" is more difficult as double "s" suggests the sound is unvoiced. Afrikaans avoids this problem as "s" is always unvoiced as in English "sell" or "less", never as in "pleasant" or "pleasure".<<

Voiced "s" cannot be dubbled, and of corse I would not like to spell "vizzit" insted of "visit". Voiced "ss" can be reduced to a single "s"(e.g. posession), but I don't kno about "dessert" or "scissors".(Maybe, "dezert" and "sizzers"?) However, one thing is clear. It is better to retain the unvoiced "ss" even if its preceding short vowel is not stressed.
e.g. access, embarrass, necessary, needless, witness.

English is a cool Language....but phonetic? No way.....that's half the fun for learners.

Talking of doubling letters, on a slightly different tack....sometimes double letters can be a wee bit perplexing...such as in the word "accommodation". More people miss out the second "m" than insert it. And in words like "desiccate" more people insert a double "s" instead of the double "c". So......phonetics is not a logical part of the English scene.

Not to be repetitive but you're all merely discussing spelling.

As was stated earlier, obviously English is a "phonetic" language. All human speech is.

My answer to the 'S' problem...

s — voiced after a long vowel
z — voiced after a short vowel
ß — unvoiced after a long vowel
ss — unvoiced after a short vowel

(Since '-st' and '-sp' are always unvoiced, a single 'S' would be fine there).

So, let uss trye a new speling sisstem wher dhe rul ovv connsonnennt dubbelling, toggedher widdh a mor kennsisstennt fonnemicc sisstem, baßed upponn mye on acccennt (Reccived Pronunnciashenn), nattrully.

Ew.

I myself would begin an English spelling reform by eliminating all instances of "ough" (a remnant of the Old and Middle English "ach-sound", as in German "nacht"), and the "gh" as in "night" (which I guess was pronounced with an "ich-sound" in Middle English times, similarly to German "nicht").

Thus:

enough -> ennuff, rough -> ruff, cough -> cuff
bough (of an arrow) -> bow
bought -> bote, fought -> fote, thought -> thote
taught -> tawt, caught -> cawt
borough -> borrow (that would make a homograph, but the two words are pronounced basically the same anyway)
"hiccough" would be banned, of course, since there is already a more phonemic alternative, "hiccup"
night -> nite

However, once I published the results of my efforts (with detailed explanations, of course), I imagine I would be flooded by letters by speakers of mainly non-British varieties questioning the necessity of distinguishing the vowel of "bought" and "taught", among others. Some more sanguine ones would maybe even label me an elitist pig for basing my spelling solely on how those words are pronounced in RP (which, as I know, is slowly ceasing to be the universal educated norm even in Britain, let alone in Ireland, Australia and other parts of the former British Empire where separate national variants are spoken). :)

Therefore, I think the main reason for English spelling being as it is now is that any reform would get stuck at the issue of which pronunciation to take as "normative". The present spelling leaves ample space for all English speakers to pronounce the individual words in accord with their own regional accent, or national variant.

>>However, once I published the results of my efforts (with detailed explanations, of course), I imagine I would be flooded by letters by speakers of mainly non-British varieties questioning the necessity of distinguishing the vowel of "bought" and "taught", among others. Some more sanguine ones would maybe even label me an elitist pig for basing my spelling solely on how those words are pronounced in RP (which, as I know, is slowly ceasing to be the universal educated norm even in Britain, let alone in Ireland, Australia and other parts of the former British Empire where separate national variants are spoken). :) <<

Of course, I myself could really not find any new orthographic standard based off of RP alone acceptable at all myself, I must say. Actually, I would have to say that no orthography that is not orthographically rhotic would be acceptable, period. However, some kind of hybrid standard based off of both RP and General American, such as one that is orthographically firmly rhotic and has the lot-cloth split, but which otherwise has conservative RP vowels and no yod-dropping or even coalescence, would be far more acceptable.

>>Therefore, I think the main reason for English spelling being as it is now is that any reform would get stuck at the issue of which pronunciation to take as "normative". The present spelling leaves ample space for all English speakers to pronounce the individual words in accord with their own regional accent, or national variant.<<

Definitely agreed. This is why I myself have come more and more towards favoring actually keeping the current standard, simply in that it allows plenty of room for variation between different dialects without the orthography having too strong of a prescriptive influence on them.

>>I myself would begin an English spelling reform by eliminating all instances of "ough" (a remnant of the Old and Middle English "ach-sound", as in German "nacht"), and the "gh" as in "night" (which I guess was pronounced with an "ich-sound" in Middle English times, similarly to German "nicht"). <<

Certenly. GH-related words ar messy.

>>Thus:

enough -> ennuff, rough -> ruff, cough -> cuff
bough (of an arrow) -> bow
bought -> bote, fought -> fote, thought -> thote
taught -> tawt, caught -> cawt
borough -> borrow (that would make a homograph, but the two words are pronounced basically the same anyway) <<

To me, a little different:

enough → enuff, rough → ruff
cough → coff
bough (a main branch on a tree) → bough
bought → baut, fought → faut, thought → thaut
taught → taut, caught → caut
borough → burroh (cf. burro, burrow)

This difference of opinion about how words should be respelled may prove what Easterner wrote:

>>Therefore, I think the main reason for English spelling being as it is now is that any reform would get stuck at the issue of which pronunciation to take as "normative". The present spelling leaves ample space for all English speakers to pronounce the individual words in accord with their own regional accent, or national variant. <<

But that dusn't mean evry spelling should be left or kept intact.

« Thus:

enough -> ennuff, rough -> ruff, cough -> cuff
bough (of an arrow) -> bow
bought -> bote, fought -> fote, thought -> thote
taught -> tawt, caught -> cawt
borough -> borrow (that would make a homograph, but the two words are pronounced basically the same anyway »

Here's how I would do it:

enough -> ennuff; rough -> ruff
cough -> coff
bough — I'd always write 'bow and arrow' — am I wrong?
bought -> bort; fought -> fort; thought -> thort
taught -> tort; caught -> cort
borough -> burruh

Anyway, bough is bough, and bow is bow.

bough (a main branch on a tree)
bow (of an arrow)

I'd prefer keeping things as they are too but here's my take on things.

enough → enuff (one <n>'s enough), rough → ruff, cough → cuff
bough (a main branch on a tree) → bow
bow (of an arrow) → boe
bought → baut, fought → faut, thought → thaut
taught → taut, caught → caut
borough → burra
thorough → thurra (these are where accents are a hang up)
night → nite
thigh → thie
hiccough → hiccup

I was not aware that "bought", &c. and "taught", &c. had different vowels in RP. So "bought", &c. rhymes with "wrote"?

English is not a phonetic language - phonetic means a language which is spelt out exactly as it is spoken. Think of it like this. In English there are words such as, slough, plough, rough, through and thorough. English is not phonetic. Even though English contains thousands of words from non-Germanic languages, English remains a Germanic language due to it's origin and roots. To begin, English [Anglo-Saxon] was made up of a mix of Germanic words from Germany, Holland, [the low countries] and of course the Viking nations. The English word COW for example, is Dutch in origin, pronounced there as COO [KOO]. You can still hear this same pronunciation in some parts of eastern England today in the Fens and East Anglia. The English language now contains about 600,000 words. New words, usually from popular slang or other languages, are added at frequent intervals. English is a language which belongs to the people who speak it and it is they [democratically] who ultimately decide new words, phrases and ways of using existing words and phrases. There is no English language high priesthood dictacting to the masses. In the Eastend of London for instance, new Urdu slang is being added to the local dialect - a form of Cockney. Wm. Shakespear for example, made up and introduced about twenty new words into English - they did not exist in the then Elizabethan English of the day, so he simply made them up and scattered them through his many plays. See if you can spot one. In the UK there are two official languages, English and Welsh. Neither language is related to the other. English is a Germanic Language while Welsh is Indo-European [Celtic]. Are the Welsh Celts? Simple answer is yes. Why? Because all the recent DNA studies carried out in Wales points directly towards Ireland. There is no Viking blood in Wales and about 85% of the population of Wales are classifed as Brythonic Celts. Brythonic Celts occupy Wales, Cornwall [Kernow] and Britanny. Welsh, Cornish and Breton languages, while they are Celtic are not the same. A Welsh speaker may understand a few words of each of the other two languages but would not be able to converse in them. Likewise an English speaker, because of the nature and make up of the language, has an immediate grasp on other languages, but would not be able to hold a conversation in them. Think of these English words, press, police, parliament etc. These and thousands more are actually French. In addition many words from further afield, such as Greek words, actually arrived in English via French. Hence, Cinema - Greek kineme [kinema - the dancing shadows of a tree seen on a white wall, etc] is pronounced with a soft 'c' [see] instead of the original hard Greek K [cake]. Here are a few Greek words contained in the English language - sorry, not in alpha-order.
ATHLETE, MATHMATICS, ARITHMETIC, HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, HERO, ECHO, DOGMA, THORAX, THEATRE, STADIUM, DIAGNOSIS, PROGNOSIS etc., and for us surfurers and pc users ICON. There are lots more, find out about them. A recent addition to English is the word CHAV. The word probably comes from a Romany language. It first came into use in the English town of Chatham where members of the lower working class were called 'chavs'. Read on.

As has already been said, I don't believe there are any languages that are truly considered phonetic--this would mean that there is no regional variation in pronunciation.

Even in Spanish, a language where a vowel is pronounciation is almost uniform (i.e. a is almost always pronounced as [a], i is almost always [i]), there is some variation in vowel pronunciation (in the Canary islands, o sometimes takes on the value of [u]), and that is to say nothing about variation of consonants, which is at least as significant as in English

I do believe, however, that you can draw a negative coorelation between consistency of phonetic value of letters and dialectical variation. Take Chinese, for example. With a pictographic alphabet, where the written symbols have nothing to do with pronunciation, Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese cannot even be considered dialects of the same language, although their written language is the same.

Is this the "Clive" that M56 has referred to?

And to "Clive":

You could break up your text as separate paragraphs, and not be nearly so rambling and tangential...

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