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.....

[dfwgator]

Well, "ä," "ö," and "ü" were originally digraphs ("ae," "oe," and "ue"), until the trailing "e" was reduced in size and move atop the leading vowel, where it eventually degenerated into the "Umlaut."

So tonight, we'll split a schnitzel... and start on the German lessons again.

We should. You must be getting rusty.

We'll just have to work at it twice as hard from now on. Das ist gut?

Sehr gut.

And the first thing we're gonna do is brush up on the umlaut.

Das ist wunderbar.

[RansomOttawa]

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

As opposed to the present Latin?

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Lemme ax you how you noticed dat?

Iza lisnen to some songs...Soul an Blues...and dat shit was gitten all up in my ears an stuff.
Yo, I mean...it like shizzled my dizzle. A'ight?

[varmintman]

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?

Older works will be converted. Then they'll be easier to read...

[varmintman]

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.

My own taste would be to include two or three kinds of things, Spanish N and umlauted German vowels which don't exist in English but which are commonly encountered. Obviously no one person could enforce such a thing and some major group effort would have to be involved. The alphabet suggested here is just that, a suggestion.

[varmintman]

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

It pretty much is already

I might should have used the word "remain" rather than "be"...

[varmintman]

In the third year, publik akseptanse...

Why the 'e' on 'akseptans??

[varmintman]

Just need to punch up the spelling of Shakespeare a bit: “2 B or not 2 B, that is the question”

You'd still want a hard E (with the line over it) for 'be'.