Real alphabet for English?

http://bearfabrique.org/EnglishAlphabet/English_Alphabet.htm ^

[varmintman]

The whole world knows that English spelling is a sick joke. If English is to be the international language of business and commerce, then a rational alphabet and a rational system of spelling need to be devised for it, and the present hodgepodge system needs to be jettissoned altogether. The inordinate amount of time spent by foreigners and English speaking children alike learning our present system of spelling would be better of spent on more reasonable goals.

A reasonable system of spelling for English would be based on the following ideas:

• It should to the extent possible use letters which English speaking people are already familiar with rather than new or strange symbols.
• In cases in which a letter has more than one possible pronounciation, accent marks should be used to differentiate the cases (rather than divising new characters).
• It should be based on the real-world assumption that text is primarily created with keyboards, and not with goose feathers and ink as was the case when our present system of writing was devised.
• It should be supported by software which fills in proper accent marks automatically with context. That is easily within present technological capabilities.
• It should include no doubled letters other than possibly for some borrowed word within which a vowel sound is doubled.
• It should be utterly unambiguous and 100% phonetic. That means that if you hear a word spoken you know how to spell it and, if you see a word written, you know how to pronounce it other than for the question of which syllable if any is stressed.

The following should serve as an example of what is needed.....

[dinoparty]

Uh. No.

[luvbach1]

If English is to be the international language of business and commerce...

It already is.

[Procyon]

Worse than the spelling is that English has too many phonemes and homonyms. The closest you can get to a simpler sounding/spelled language is Spanish or Latin.

[Procyon]

And after generations are taught the simplified spelling will they be able to read older books or will they be lost to the general culture or treated as mere quaint poems and prose like Chaucer’s works?

[dangus]

I don’t get it. Why would we need letters for sounds that don’t exist in English (Spanish N~, trilling R, etc.)? None of the major languages have separate letters for trilling Rs and English-style Rs.

[the OlLine Rebel]

I have actually thought about this situation.

However, I prefer devising new characters. I hate those extra symbols. Think of a keyboard. You might as well make new characters as add keys for all the different “accents” on extant letters.

We have a wonderful flexible language, but the “diversity” that ultimately molded it is also what causes all the confusion. Far too many influences that contradict each other.

[dangus]

The same old standard phonetic alphabet (which you
would use to describe spelling “Wilson” as “Whiskey, India,
Lima, Sierra, Oscar, November”) has been used by aircraft
pilots, millitary personnel, and many others for many years
now. So, I finally decided to come up with something a bit
more “original” for those people who annoy me:

A Are N Nine
B Bee O Owe
C Cite P Pseudonym
D Double-U Q Queue
E Eye R Rap
F Five S Sea
G Genre T Tsunami
H Hoe U Understand?
I I V Vie
J Junta W Why
K Knot X Xylophone
L Lye Y You
M Me Z Zero

People don’t ask me to spell anything over the
phone anymore.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Try reading all your English by what we’re taught is basic English phonetics.

Heck, try just my sentence there.

[teppe]

I’m with you! Get rid of ‘ph’ spelling for ‘f’ sounds! For that matter, why is there a ‘ck’ spelling when the sound is pure ‘k’.

We should modernize the language!

[null and void]

No ə?

[GeronL]

If English is to be the international language of business and commerce

It pretty much is already

[dangus]

The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty’s Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).

In the first year, “s” will be used instead of the soft “c.” Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard “c” will be replaced with “k”. Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik emthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced by “f”. This will make words like fotograf” 20 persent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent “e”s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” by “z” and “w” by “ v”.

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou”, and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

Ze drem vil finali kum tru.

[GeronL]

or modernize the people

[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

maybee thay need to spel thingz fonticalli. due yung peepol nott due that alredi wen thay teckst on thayr i-fonez? (/sarc)

[GeronL]

crazee

Okay, we should all just learn Korean I guess

or better yet, just use their alphabet

[OneWingedShark]

The closest you can get to a simpler sounding/spelled language is Spanish or Latin.

I'm going to disagree; languages using syllabaries (eg Japanese, Cherokee) tend to be simpler spelling (arguably sounding as well), IMO.

[Joe 6-pack]

[GeronL]

Japanese is very complicated, not as crazy as Chinese with their phonebook-level alphabet..... Korean is simpler than both

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

The closest you can get to a simpler sounding/spelled language is Spanish

Spare us. All the bilingual subway signs in English and Spanish show me that it takes 50 percent more words to say the same thing.