A a - /ah/
Æ æ - /aa/
B b - /be/
D d - /de/
Ð ð - /dth/
E e - /e/
Ē ē - /ae/
F f - /fe/
G g - /ge/
H h - /he/
I ı - /ih/
Ī ī - /ee/
Ʌ ʌ - /ai/
J j - /ye/
L l - /le/
M m - /me/
N n - /ne/
Ɲ ŋ - /ng/
O o - /o/
Ō ō - /oe/
Œ œ - /ur/
P p - /pe/
R r - /re/
ʃ ſ - /se/
Ϣ ϣ - /sh/
T t - /te/
Ɵ ϑ - /th/
U u - /uh/
Ū ū - /uu/
V v - /ve/
Ƿ ƿ - /we/
X ϰ - /ke/
Z z - /ze/
Ʒ ʒ - /zch/
` ` - glottal stop
Glad to see some people into spelin reform.
I think little corrections like changing/replacing few letters won't get it anywhere. It will be like attempt to introduce metric back in the 70s, it will confuse people and create more nonsense.
if spelling reform should happen it should be fully implemented with strong phonemic orthography. Hopefully sometime in the future countries with de facto or official english language usage will consider establishing global iingliš language academy and reform the spelling based on neutral accent (old english?) and keep it updated as it ever evolves.
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Anonymous2010-07-07 8:01
I think the English writing system does need a reform.
Not being phonetic is stupid.
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Anonymous2010-07-07 10:03
hvi not du boθ, it iz veri έzi?
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Anonymous2010-07-07 10:58
>>48
I had thorn in my old revisions but I've since gotten sick of it. However I do truly believe that English should include thorn and eth if any major revisions were to take place. Won't happen though, people are too close-minded.
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Anonymous2010-07-07 11:03
"Modern English has anywhere from 14 to 22 separate vowel and diphthong phonemes, depending on dialect, and 26 or 27 consonants. A simple phoneme-letter representation of this language within the 26 letters of the English alphabet is impossible"
Seriously, if there was spelling reform, literacy rates would rise and learning difficulties would diminish.
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Anonymous2010-07-07 11:14
English has 44 sounds, consisting of 20 vowels and 24 consonants, as exemplified in the following words and graphemes:
19 vowels as in at, aim, fair, cart, autumn, end, eel, term, it, tie, on, toe, oil, too, fort, up, due, out, could
and the unstressed, barely audible half vowel (or schwa) as in 'flatten, decide, abandon;
and the 24 consonants b, ch, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, ng, p, r, s, sh, t, v, w, y, z, voiced th (this), unvoiced th (think), and zh (as in vision).
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Anonymous2010-07-07 14:05
Many people have tried spelling reform (including Benjamin Franklin and Andrew Carnegie). It has never caught on (read The Mother Tongue for moar info).
And we'd have to retranslate all of our shit we have now.
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English Reform 2010-07-08 7:38
Vowel Phoneme Approximation Replacement Letter
a at A a
aeye aim Ä ä
air fair eh
aa cart Æ æ
augh autumn Å å
eh end E e
ee see Ë ë
er term Œ œ
ih it I i
ai tie Ï ï
o rock O o
oe toe Ö ö
oi oil Ó ó
oo too uu
or fort augh
uh up U u
uu due Ü ü
au out Á á
uoh could Ú ú
Consonant Phoneme Approximation Replacement Letter Alternative Letters Alt. Lettering Reason
b boat B b
ch church t + sh
d dance D d
f found F f
g game G g
h hard H h
j jump d + zh
k king K k
l life L l
m man M m
n now N n
ng sing Ŋ ŋ Ń ń, Ņ ņ, Ň ň Too similar to "N"
p pass P p
r read R r
s said S s
sh should ʃ ſ Ś ś, Ŝ ŝ, Ş ş, Š š, Ƨ ƨ Too similar to "f and r"
t time T t
v vice V v
w would W w
y yes Y y
z zoo Z z
dth the Ð ð
th thing Þ þ Θ θ, Ɵ ϑ Too similar to "p"
zh genre Ʒ ʒ Ƶ ƶ, Ź ź, Ż ż, Ž ž Too similar to the number "3"
[glottal stop] uh-oh ` `
A Ä Á E Ë I Ï O Ö Ó U Ü Ú Æ Œ
B D Ð F G H K L M N Ŋ P R S ʃ T V W Y Z Ʒ Þ
A Ä Á B D Ð E Ë F G H I Ï K L M N Ŋ O Ö Ó P R S ʃ T U Ü Ú V W Y Z Ʒ Þ Æ Œ
at - at
aim - äm
fair - fer
cart - kæt
autumn - åtum
end - end
see - së
term - tœm
it - it
tie - tï
rock - rok
toe - tö
oil - óil
too - *tüü
fort - *f `åt
up - up
due - dyü
out - át
could - kúd
*contains two u-umlauts to diffrientiate between the word "to" which would be "tü" *the word for "fort"'s homonym (fought) would be "fåt" which does not contain the glottal stop. (Nouns have priority of glottal stop).
dance - dæns
found - fánd
game - gäm
hard - hæd
jump - dʒump
king - kiŋ
life - lïf
man - man
now - ná
sing - siŋ
pass - pæs
read - ^rëd
said - sed
should - ſúd
time - tïm
vice - vïs
would - wúd
yes - yes
zoo - zü
the - ðu
thing - þiŋ
genre - ʒonru
uh-oh - `u-ö
^ read's homonym, "reed" would be spelt "rëëd".
Kinda dig it, but I think /dzh/ should have a single letter -- one letter per sound would be the simplest thing to shoot for
Žž seems a good one to me. Śś might be a good one for /sh/ and Ćć for /ch/, maybe Ąą for /ai/ in air. Qu /kv/ probably needs to be changed too Ķ seems pretty good.
Something like:
Śúd wē go tǔ Ķać?
"Should we go to Kvatch"
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Anonymous2010-07-08 12:43
Guys, guys. Let's not go to far wiþ ðis. Ðere's noþiŋ wrong wiþ yusiŋ letterklusters. But wile wi'r at it, wy not remov unnesessary redundansy?
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Anonymous2010-07-08 12:46
>>58
O, Ai almost forgot, it's nise to be eibel to writ it yusiŋ a normal kibord.
Nothing wrong with clusters, but I don't think a good phonetic spelling system would use letter clusters to produce a single sound (like useing Qu, Sh, Wh, Ch, Th, and so on). That doesn't mean that I can't use clusters for a combination of two different sounds like throw or school or something. Wen rather than when makes sense. using a symbol for every lettercluster isn't sensible. I mean how fucking long do we want the alphabet to be.
I also like how Deseret shortens common words like "the" to "????." That would be pretty handy even in a Latin-based orthography.
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Anonymous2010-07-15 1:48
>>61
All I see in boxes and hexdigits in them. Let's take as rule of thumb that everthing that is everything with uncode >0xffff should not be used because it's lesbi.
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Anonymous2010-07-15 1:49
>>60
"Wen" rather than "when" does not make sense because /w/ and /hw/ are not the same sound.
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Anonymous2010-07-15 1:51
>>62
No, let's take it as a rule of thumb that your computer just has shitty support for supplementary planes.
>>47
What the hell is this? Did you just scroll through Character Map looking for "cool" letters?
Ɲ and ŋ are not a case pair! Neither are ʃ and ſ; hell, ʃ is already lowercase!
Why bring in Ϣ and ϣ from Coptic? Why bring in Ɵ and ϑ from Greek symbols? (They're not a case pair either!) Why the hell would you try to use ϰ as a lowercase for X?!
And let's not forget how many of your letters are being used for sounds they never represent...
It wud bi greit tu taip ingliš džast laik it is pronounc'd! Ænd wi siriousli níd ðís kúl Nordik rúnletters Ð ænd Þ.
Grítiŋs (jús 'ng'-digræf if jú wiš) from Finlænd!
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Anonymous2010-10-23 9:43
I used to think that English spelling should be completely done up from scratch so that each spelling would properly represent the pronunciation of its word, but now I think that truly phonetic spelling isn't possible. Every accent and dialect has a very different way of pronouncing each word, so a universally accepted form of spelling is necessary for people to understand each other.
However, I do think English could benefit from some new letters, like ð/Ð and þ/Þ.
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Anonymous2010-10-23 18:07
>>78
You don't need to aim for a PHONETIC spelling... but a PHONEMIC one. Like, the K in Kill and in sKill sounds pretty different, but it's the same phoneme (sound building block), so it's OK to use the same letter for both... most dialectal variation is just about this, and, if you consider a lot of different dialects while making your spelling, it'll probably be OK.
About ð and þ: just using "dh" and "th" would be the best bet... if English didn't already used "h" for a sound and didn't allowed words like "courthouse". So, these letters can be really useful...
I would suggest "make slow, make small, make progressive". Changing first things that are already against English orthography rules (like island>iland, piranha>piranya, machine>makine, etc.). After this, tweaking the rules a bit until they're acceptable.
One thing I never understood is, why English tries to write loanwords as they were in their native language? Does writing "filozofy" instead of "philosophy" wouldn't be already a progress?
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Anonymous2010-10-23 19:09
(Samefag as >>79 )
inb4 "piranha is a Portuguese loanword", so does "breeze", "emu", "tank", but I've never seen someone proposing write them in English as "brisa", "ema" and "tanque".