spelling reform
"For example: What about the superfluous "k" in "know"? And if we do away with it, how will we distinguish it from "now", the two being pronounced in the same way by most English speakers?"
I've never met anyone who pronounced "know" and "now" the same. Perhaps you mean "no" and "know".
"I mean, you can write "cease", "seize" and "seas" as "siiz", but imagine what a public reaction this would cause"
I imagine it would considering that "cease" does not sound the same as "seize" or "seas". "Cease" ends with an "s" sound and the latter two with a "z" sound.
Yes, you're right, it was a typo. I meant "no".
>>"Cease" ends with an "s" sound and the latter two with a "z" sound.<<
Thanks. I've always pronounced "cease" with a /z/ sound, albeit with a little weaker one than in the two other words. But then, I'm not a native speaker, either.
By the way, coming back to the idea of a spelling reform, when I used to entertain myself (back at university) with the idea of how English would look with a regular spelling, I realised that it has quite a lot of homophones, therefore a completely "regular" English spelling would ironically create quite a mess, at least for a number of native speakers. Apart from the examples I listed, some others are: "bear" and "bare", "beat" and "beet", "beer" and "bier", "die" and "dye", "flee" and "flea", "meat" and "meet", "see" and "sea" (also "sees" and "seas"), "(to) tire" and "tyre" (US "tire"), "where" and "wear" (in a dialect where the three are pronounced the same), etc., etc. If your goal is the improvement of literacy, then a change in the spelling of these words would be rather counter-productive, I'm afraid.
To illustrate, here is an example: let's say you decide on spelling "die" and "dye" as "dy" (which is Elizabeth's suggestion). That would not be much of a problem, but how about speling its past tense form? If you substitute "dyd" for both "died" and "dyed", many speakers would be inclined to read it as /dId/ (same as "did"), not /d@Id/, or would at least be at a loss. If you decide on "dyed", then they would understand it to stand for "dyed", but not "died", so you are back at the original problem in a way.
As for interpreting which homophone (and, in case of a regular spelling, homograph) is meant in writing, you can always rely on the context, but I think the present English spelling is a "lowest common denominator" for sometimes rather different types of pronunciation (I mean regional accents, which native speakers use in everyday interactions, not standard pronunciation varieties). In other words, it functions as an unifying factor in the midst of diversity: you pronounce different words differently, depending on which part of the English-speaking world you are from, but at least you know that in case of misunderstanding , a speaker from the other part of the globe, who may not be completely able to get a word or two will at least get your meaning when they ask you to spell it.
Erratum: "spelling" (now we're talking about orthography).
On a strictly personal note: I really liked Elizabeth's respelling of the excerpt from Siddhartha: it almost looked like having been taken from an antique book dating from the 14th-15th century or so (when spelling must have been more "regular" than it is now). :)
>>... ; the uses of the endings ‑able and ‑ible as in probable and terrible which create difficulties for many people; and ...<<
How about this?
* Propper use of "-able" and "-ible" has to be simplifyed.
After soft C and soft G, use "-ible". e.g.: changible, intangible, invincible
In other cases, always use "-able". e.g.: responsable, terrable, invisable
I briefly looked at your reform, and I like it. If I am correct, I see that you preserve long 'a' with a silent 'e' "same?" Have you considered a double 'aa' eg. 'saam,' 'taak,' 'naam' to eliminate silent finals, like 'e?'
Not at all. I think "same" is easy to read because of the Magic-E efect. Same with "take" and "name".
The main thing is that the use of "aa" would imply /A/, not /e/, due to it already being used for /A/ in Dutch and /a/ in German, while not at all being currently used for /e/ in English. Therefore, it might be somewhat misleading to use such for such.
One issue, though, with comprehensive spelling reform is that if a new orthography is to be effectively phonemic design-wise, even of the phonemes it represents aren't actually distinguished in many dialects, one will be effectively designing a single "Standard English" by creating a new phonemic-distinction-conservative orthography for all of English. This is that while one's intentions may not be to do such, due to the tendency of literate individuals to tend towards spelling pronunciation, which would only be exacerbated by the phonemicness of the orthography in question, one might as well be effectively doing such, at least to the level of specifying phonemes (and not the actual underlying phonology in question, which would be unspecified by what would be written). Consequently, more thought should be put into *constructing* what a new phonemic orthography would actually represent beyond doing what many people would try to do, which is to simply try to create an orthography that phonemically represents "General American" or Received Pronunciation or some hybrid of the two. Furthermore, one should design as if it were really to be some sort of unified "Standard English", even though it is really only to be used as the basis of what is to be represented by a new orthography.
Do you think the above could be fit for your own proposed orthography, Travis?
Well, that is why I call my proposal to be "provisional", specifically because it is *not* meant to fit such a role at all.
"But 'b' as in 'doubt' is needless, I suppose."
Not at all. Without it, "doubt" would be incorrectly spelled.
Ha ha!