Why English pronunciation is so irregular? Why no reform?

Compared to Spanish, Italian and German it's a real mess. It seems to have thousands of special rules for every letter to pronounce it differently.
for example: the "a" in car and care, the "o" in women and woman, the "gh" in ghost and tough.

Why there never was any kind of spelling reform, like in other countries, to make spelling and pronunciation more consistent and logical?

No, pronunciation isn't irregular at all. It's the spelling what's irregular.

Compared to Spanish, Italian and German it's a real mess.

compared with ANY OTHER language

Yes, it is -- only because of the ortography.

I'm a student of English and even though spelling and pronunciation is difficult in this language I think this "illogical" spelling is its fascination.
It's the "characteristic" of English and people is accustomed to it by this time.
Any reform can't be done because natives and non-natives speakers can't learn again another spelling by now!
I hope there won't be any reform changing the spelling, first because it's not the same thing writing "maus" instead of mouse or ska.i instead of sky, you have to change your mind completely concerning the approach to the language.
Second I think a reform can't be done considering the consequences in spelling. There is the possibility it won't semplify anything but only replace a spelling with another illogical one or even worse. Especially considering homophones etc.
We can't write "fail" instead of FILE because fail has another meaning in English, or "live" instead of LEAVE and these are just two examples among hundreds of words.

There have been subtle reforms in spelling over the last few centuries, but nothing too drastic. I know that many on this forum will disagree with me, but I am 100% completely against a reform that would radically alter the spelling of so many words. Of course, if such a reform did pass, you would have to pick a dialect of the English language on where to base the phonetic spellings of this so-called "reform". For example, if you were to alter to spelling of "tomorrow" to "tamaro", you would throw off those of us who pronounce it as "tomOHrrow".

I'm strictly Conservative. I don't even like the idea of making words shorter and eliminating silent letters. I say keep English the way it is, and if people want to reverse -re to -er or eliminate the -ue from "dialogue", that should be a personal choice rather than a universal choice. Just don't expect me to conform on such a radical level.

Part of the problem with spelling reform is that pronunciation isn't consistent from dialect to dialect. In a way, it's better to have the spelling equally bad for all regions than to have it perfect for one region and horrible for another region.

Also, consider the word "electric" and its forms: electric, electricity, electrician. The second "c" has a different pronunciation in each one, but the connection between the words is clearer than if the words were written, say, elektrik, elektrisity, elektrishen.

- Kef

@furrykef

About your "electric" sample:

There are languages where it's like you thought it up for English, for example German

electric - elektrisch
electricity - Elektrizität
electrician - Elektriker

It's absolutely clear what is meant because all 3 words come from the Greek word for amber: ήλεκτρον. Why shouldn't that work in English, too?

@Shatnerian and furrykef

What has spelling to do with dialects and regions?

In every language you have a kind of "high language" which is the written language and you have local dialects which are not written.

There is no universally agreed upon "high language" among English-speaking countries, or even within countries. Just read some of the endless threads in this forum on caught-cot, rhotic r, etc.

And unlike other languages, English has not undergone spelling reforms for centuries. Add to this that English has taken in a huge percentage of words from other languages, usually with a spelling that has no relation to that of the Old English base.

The orthography IS a mess, especially for non-natives, but natives (and other fluent users) gradually get use to it with constant exposure, even if they've never studied phonics.

Changing the spelling now would cause the complete revision of every English language book, website, instruction manual, sign, etc.--probably the largest language base in the world--and going back at least for several centuries. (We can still read Shakespeare now--with a little difficulty--and Dickens et al. are no problem.) For the hundreds of millions of currently literate speakers, it is not worth the cost or effort.

''Compared to Spanish, Italian and German it's a real mess.''

Well, Italian spelling is not that ''regular''.
You cannot tell the pronunciation of the stressed Es or Os from spelling, you need to use the dictionary: for example VENTI with the open E means ''winds'', and with the closed E it means ''twenty''; CORSO with the open E means ''Corsican'', and with the closed E it means ''course''...So, I would consider Italian spelling to pronunciation relationship that perfect.

''Compared to Spanish, Italian and German it's a real mess.''

Well, Italian spelling is not that ''regular''.
You cannot tell the pronunciation of the stressed Es or Os from spelling, you need to use the dictionary: for example VENTI with the open E means ''winds'', and with the closed E it means ''twenty''; CORSO with the open O means ''Corsican'', and with the closed O it means ''course''...So, I would consider Italian spelling to pronunciation relationship that perfect.

Spanish spelling, well you have the B-V problem.

German, same as Italian, E can stand for both [e] and [E], O can be both [o] and [O]...Using different Es or Os would sound strange/foreign to a German ear.

<<And unlike other languages, English has not undergone spelling reforms for centuries.>>

This isn't completely true. A concerted, determined effort was realized in the late 19th century to dramatically reform the spelling. Led by English expatriates in the US, the main goal was to simplify spelling. Such words as "catalog", "fonetics", "ar", etc were features of this effort.

Unfortunately, the reforms just didn't "stick", although a few of the words did. That's why we now have "catalog", "color", etc.

It would be better if everyone spoke Germanic languages. Damn I wish the Germans won WWI.

In Italian you cannot know the stress/accent of a word unless you have heard it before, so if spelling is pretty regular, accents aren't.

àsino - asìno - or asinò ???
fìnestra, finèstra or finestrà?