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Spelling reform
Do you think the spelling of English will ever be reformed, I once got this example offf a website on spelling reform this was their alphabet.
Short vowels
a-short vowel sound in cat, mat, bag.
e-short vowel sound in bed, egg, ten, dead, get, many.
i-short vowel sound in bid, bit, pit, hint, fish.
o-short vowel sound in cot, hot, dot, wash,
u-short vowel sound in cut, hut, hug, son, ton, honey, money.
Long vowels
ae-long vowel sound in plate, late, bait.
ee-long vowel sound in speed, meat, read, field,
ie-long vowel sound in spider, wide, fly, cry, light.
oe-long vowel sound in boat, coast, post, ghost.
ue-long vowel sound in few, mute, beautiful.
Two letter sounds
Oi- boy, toy, coin, join.
oo-two, who, tutu, suit, super, moon.
ou-cow, how, wow, brown, mount.
uu-cook, should, would, wood. book
R vowel sounds.
ar-car, Mars, tar, far, star.
er-care, air, hair, very, hairy.
eer-steer, hear, beer, pier.
or-four, core, corn, ford, cord, torn.
ur-burn, girl, learn, Earth, curve.
Consonants
b-bag
ch-chin
d-dog
f-free
g-get never in words like gym.
h-height never silent
j-jet
k-kite, cat.
l-lick
m-might
n-night
p-plane
q-not used
r-rust
s-stove
sh-ship
t-tiger
th-thing, that
v-vehicle
w-wing
x-not used
y-yes never in words like fly or happy.
z-zag
zh-vision
What spelling reform will take place, in my humble opinion, is the gradual bits-and-pieces one which is going on as we spe... type.
What do you think of their idea? Do you think it could be improved upon? A quick look at it brings to light a few interesting features.
1 They make not distinction between the "th" in "thing" and that in "that". Perhaps none is needed, the only minimal pair I can think of is "thigh" and "thy".
2 They seem to have no "wh" as in "what", "why", etc. Some people pronounce this as [w] others say [hw] whilst others say [W]. What [W] represents is the voiceless labial-velar fricative, like a [w] but voiceless. So for some, [W] is a separate phoneme and thus deserves representation.
There is not symbol for the voiceless labial-velar fricative in Antimoon's ASCII Phonetic Alphabet. In the IPA it's an up-side-down "w" but you can type that in ASCII so I'm using SAMPA.
http://www.cs.brown.edu/~dpb/ascii-ipa.html
3 The "ch" sound in "loch" is unrepresented. It may be rare but I wouldn't over look it.
If all this seems a bit petty, perhaps you're right but now on to the more important omissions.
4 It seems that they've forgotten the "ng" in "sing", "thing", etc. all together.
Their vowel chart leaves a bit to be desired. It needs a good reshuffle. But the main problem is that they have hardly enough vowels. Let's set things straight so we can see what's going on.
Short vowels
a-short vowel sound in cat, mat, bag.
e-short vowel sound in bed, egg, ten, dead, get, many.
i-short vowel sound in bid, bit, pit, hint, fish.
o-short vowel sound in cot, hot, dot, wash,
u-short vowel sound in cut, hut, hug, son, ton, honey, money.
uu-cook, should, would, wood. book
5 The unstressed central vowel, [..], (the IPA's schwa) doesn't even get a mention.
Long vowels
ee-long vowel sound in speed, meat, read, field,
ue-long vowel sound in few, mute, beautiful.
oo-two, who, tutu, suit, super, moon.
These are their "long vowels" (except for the "R vowel sounds"). But there are some serious omissions.
6 There is no long "a" as in "father". How could they have over looked this?
7 There is no long "au"/"aw" as in "claw" or "author". Another puzzling omission.
Diphthongs
ae-long vowel sound in plate, late, bait.
ie-long vowel sound in spider, wide, fly, cry, light.
oe-long vowel sound in boat, coast, post, ghost.
Oi- boy, toy, coin, join.
ou-cow, how, wow, brown, mount.
8 What about the "eah" in "yeah", [e..]? (This is a long vowel in some accents.)
9 What about the "ea" in "idea", [i..]?
R vowel sounds.
ar-car, Mars, tar, far, star.
er-care, air, hair, very, hairy.
eer-steer, hear, beer, pier.
or-four, core, corn, ford, cord, torn.
ur-burn, girl, learn, Earth, curve.
10 What about the "er" in "daughter", "concert"? This is distinct from the "ur" in "burn and "curve".
11 What about the "our" in "tour"?
12 What about the "our" in "flour"?
So there's a dozen holes in their system. If they patched them up they might be going somewhere. Still, I'm not keen on all their choices but except for the holes I pointed out the thing would work.
"Okay, smarty-pants," you may be thinking "I'd like to see you do better." Would you? No, seriously, I've got an idea that I think would work but it's more involved than this.
If anyone would like to see it, just ask and I'll post it. But, they say "Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it." A warning: it's long.
If you're wondering, it's nothing like my previous idea. No "x"s and "q"s for vowels. It's new and improved and best of all legible.
Richard,
Could you give us the address for this site?
Richard, that spelling reform would create just more confusion.
I would propose something like this:
Simple Vowels:
/^/ - a, A ([up] - [ap])
/a:/ - á, Á ([fast] - [fást] in BE or [fäst] in AE)
/i:/ - í, Í ([heave] - [hív])
/I/ - i, I, or y, Y ([bit] - [bit])
/U/ - u, U ([foot] - [fut])
/u:/ - ú, Ú ([fumes] - [fyúmz])
/e/ - e, E ([bet] - [bet])
/o/ - o, O ([hot] - [hot])
/o:/ - ó, Ó ([horse] - [hórs])
/ae/ - ä ([bad] - [bäd])
/3:/ - ŕ [bird] could be [bŕd]. (this would be more precise in AE, but not in BE)
Complex vowels:
/eI/ in [say] would be [sei]
/I../ in [beer] would be [bia]
/U../ in [fewer] would be [fjua]
/oI/ in [boy] would be [boy]
/..U] in [go] would be [gou] (this would be more accurate in AE, but again not in BE)
/e../ in [bear] would be [bea]
/aI/ in [high] - [hai], [hi] - [hai], [height] - [hait]
/aU/ in [how] - [hau]
Consonants:
/b/ - b
/d/ - d
/s/, /ts/ - c ([nuisance] would be written as [njúsnc] in BE, and [núsnc] in
AE])
/tS/ - č ([chap] - [čäp])
/dz/ - j (so [jay] would be [jei], [gee] would be [jí])
/ch/ - ch (slavic "ch")
/f/ - f
/g/ - g (so [gay] would become [gei], [gal] - [gäl])
/h/ - h
/j/ - y (so [yes] would remain [yes], [yet] - [yet])
/k/ - k ([callous] - [kälas], but 2nd a would be schwa)
/l/ - l
/m/ - m
/n/ - n
/p/ - p
/r/ - r
/s/ - s
/S/ - š ([shy] - [šai])
/t/ - t
/v/ - v
/w/ - w
/z/ - z
/Z/ - ž ([leisure] - [leža] in BE)
both th sounds would be typed as th as before
So english alphabet would have following new letters : á, ä, í, ó, ŕ, ú, č, š, ž
Some may argue why to change current english "sh" to "š"? Not only this would shorten english texts, but would also make it possible to type a word like /shun/, so finally english people would stop mispronouning foreign names containing sh.
But there would be still a problem with schwa. I would personally not add a new letter for it, but type the most similar vowel instead. So [bear] would be [bea], [subtract] would be [subträkt], [centre] would be [senta]. However americans could start to complain why they should pronounce [bear] like [bea]? Lol it's a vicious circle. And I don't know what they would do with their flapping /t/.
There is no way to satisfy all sides without few concessions.
I wish Britons had reformed English language before they started to colonise the world!
ŕ is a /r/ with /´/, and č is a /c/ with /ˇ/, I don't know why I see those numbers instead of the correct letters.
They write the ''ng'' sound as ''ng'', when the ''k'' sound comes after it, like in think or sunk, they leave the g out.
They spell the wh words, why, when, where, what, as wie, wen, wer, wut.
They write the ''a'' sound in father, the same as the ''o'' sound in copper.
They write the ''au'' sound in author the same as the ''o'' sound in copper.
they write the ''our'' sound in shower and flour, ''our''.
They write the ''our'' sound in tour, poor and your as tor, por, and yor.
They write the schwa sound ''u'' same letter as the sound in but, rust, dust etc. alike and button become uliek and butun.
I wouldn't ever agree to a spelling reform, simply because it would cause more problems than it would solve. You would have one lot of people using one system, and another reverting to the old system because it is 'easier' to use..when the whole point of a spelling reform is to make the language easier to use! Some people spell Sulphur with like sulfur..but then what do they do in Chemistry when they come across phosphorus? They can't change it's spelling or it would cock up the whole periodic table!
They could make two spelling reforms, one for American English and one for British English. Then they'd have aluminum, and either. American spellings-uloominum, eethur, British spellings-alumineeum, iethur.
Syllables u-loom-i-num, al-u-min-ee-um.
Yes, it would bring some new problems, but I don't think those would outweight the benefits of a such reform. It would make english easier to learn for foreigners, easier for your children to read and type, people would stop mispronouncing words, since they would become deeply inscribed in your memory.
It might seem to be very complicated in the initial years, but as soon as people would get used to it, they would stick with it.
I'm convinced, that if U.S government decided to reform US english, Brits would join them (it would definitely spark a discussion leading to cooperation), since they wouldn't want to allow a linguistic rift to be created between these two nations. The same holds vice versa. If Brits started with the reform, the rest of the world would reform their English as well.
But everyone is affraid to make the first move. Conservatives are shouting nonsense like english would not be english anymore and similar rubbish, so nothing is being done.
Reformed spelling
They are going to do a contest and might win a million dollars.
Thae ar goeing too doo u kontest and miet win u milyun dolurz.
In that spelling reform, they spell yeah as ye, short ''e'' sound., the way they spell ye is yee.
They showed these words reformed.
Days of the week
Sunday=Sundae
Monday=Mundae
Tuesday=toozdae
Wednesday=Wenzdae
Thursday=Thurzdae
Friday=Friedae
Saturday=Saturdae
Months of the year
January=janue-eree
February=febue-eree
March=march
April=Aeprul
May=Mae
June=Joon
July=Joolie
August=Ogust
September=Septembur
October=Oktoebur
November=Noevembur
December=Deesembur
Seasons of the year
Winter=wintur
Spring=spring
summer=sumur
fall/autumn=fol/otum
Instead of spelling reform, we could just use a different language for writing things. This way, the English language would be a totally oral language, and in 500 years time, when English has evolved enough, our descendents can come up with an orthography that makes the English language the most phonetic of its time.
Richard,
Thanks for the clarification. But it still wouldn't suit half the English speakers of the world.
They write the ''ng'' sound as ''ng'', when the ''k'' sound comes after it, like in "think" or "sunk", they leave the "g" out. Okay, this makes sense. Just wondering though, what about "finger" and "linguistics", do they double the "g"?
They spell the "wh-" words, "why", "when", "where", "what", as "wie", "wen", "wer", "wut". This would work for most of us but not all of us. There are those for whom "wh" and "w" are distinct. The dictinction should be made in spelling too.
They write the ''a'' sound in "father" and ''au'' sound in "author", the same as the ''o'' sound in "copper". This is a plain non-starter for at least half the English-speaking world. These are three distinct sounds and should not be bundled up into the same letter.
They write the ''our'' sound in shower and flour, ''our''. Okay, that works.
They write the ''our'' sound in "tour", "poor" and "your" as "tor", "por" and "yor". But they spell "four" and core" similarly, "for" and "kor". For me this works for "poor" and "your" but for a good many people, me included, "tour" does not rhyme with "four" and "core".
They write the schwa sound ''u'' same letter as the sound in but, rust, dust etc. alike and button become uliek and butun. Again, completely overlooking the distinction between two phonemes.
They spell "yeah" as "ye". But the "eah" in "yeah" is not the short ''e'' sound.
They spell finger ''fingur'' they don't double the ''g'', they'd spell singer similar ''singur'' they don't make the distinction between finger and singer. they don't spell it ''finggur''.
They also reformed the contractions without appostrophies, I don't know if this is a good idea.
Can't=kant
Don't=doent
won't=woent
didn't=didunt
doesn't=duzunt
wasn't=wuzunt
weren't=wurnt
you're=yor
we're=weer
they're=ther
Actually, I even pronounce yeah with the short ''e'' sound. I wonder if pronounce it with a different sound is an Australian thing. I've never even heard ''yeah'' pronounced different.
I mean ''pronouncing'' not ''pronounce''.
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