Semiphonetic English Spelling Reform (elementary school, grade, history, logic)

[CAllenDoudna]

Not sure where to post this, but I suppose at some point it would have to be taught. I struggled through First and Second Grade Spelling, then in Third Grade we started learning dictionary respelling. I was dumbfounded. Why didn't we just write THAT way? Over the years I learned more and made a hobby of collecting alphabets. I learned how other languages managed to spell their words more or less the way they sounded with the same alphabet we have and realized English could do the same. While I was intrigued by various phonetic alphabets I came to realize these would require new typewriters with keyboards too big for the fingers of the human hand to reach all the keys. What we needed was to redefine some of the letters of the alphabet we already have. It would have to be a semiphonetic alphabet rather than a true phonetic alphabet as it would be necessary for each vowel to have two sounds, but many languages did the same. By High School I had it pretty well worked out, with the chief question being do we distingush between the two vowel sounds with accent marks--such as the Romance tongues use--or by following the Germanic languages and writing the long vowels double? I decided it would be more practical to write the long vowels double.

I will re-type the above paragraph in Semiphonetic. Here are the changes:

Vowels:

a = a in "man". aa = "ah".
e = e in "the". ee = e in "bed".
i = i in "in". ii = ee in "need".
o = "aw". oo = "oh".
u = oo in "good". uu = oo in "boo".

ai = y in "my". au = "ow".
ei = "ay".
oi = oy in "boy".
yu = u in "use".

er = "air".

Consonants:

c = "sh".
j = s in "measure".
q = th in "path".
x = th in "the".
tc = ch in "chatter".
dj = j in "jump".

ul = le in "little".
ur = er in "runner".

It would take some getting used to, especially since I have followed the rules of spelling sounds the way they actually are made rather than make exceptions like "ch instead of tc" or "ow instead of au". There will be differences in pronunciation/spelling that may need to be worked out. I've taken it as far as one person can. The rest is up to you. Here is the first paragraph of this post as a sample, and you might want to put your posts in current spelling and then respell as you think it ought to be:

Naat cur hwer tuu poost xis, bet Ai sepooz at sem point it wud hav tuu bii tot. Ai stcreguld qruu Furst and Seekend Greid Speeliin, xeen in Qurd Greid wii staarted lurniin diktcenerii riispeeliin. Ai wez demfaunded. Hwai didn't wii djest rait XAT wei? Oovur xe yiirz Ai lurnd mor and meid ei haabii ev keleektiin alfebeets. Ai lurnd hau exur langweidjez manedjd tuu spel xer wurdz mor or lees xe wei xei saunded wiq xe seim alfebeet wii hav and riilaizd Inglic kud duu xe seim. Hwail Ai wez intcriigd bai veriies faaneetik alfebeets Ai keim tuu riilaiz xiiz wud riikwair nuu taipraiturz wiq kiibordz tuu big for xe fingurz ev xe hyumen hand tuu riitc ol xe kiiz. Hwaat wii niided wez tuu riidiifain sem ev xe leeturz ev xe alfebeet wii olreedii hav. It wud hav tuu bii ei seemaifaaneetiik alfebeet raxur xan ei tcruu faaneetiik alfebeet az it wud bii neeseserii for iitc vaul tuu hav tuu saundz, bet manii langweidjez did xe seim. Bai Hai Skuul Ai had it purtii weel wurkd aut, wiq xe tciif kwestcen biiiin duu wii distignwic biitcwiin xe tuu vaul saundz wiq akseent maarks--setc az xe Roomans tengz yuz--or bai folooiin xe Djurmanik langweidjez and raitiin xe long vaulz debul? Ai diisaided it wud bii mor praktikul tuu rait xe lopng vaulz debul.

[malamute]

That's horrible! Very hard to read -- regular English seems okay to me.

What I think it is - we don't really read by sounding out words, our eyes scan entire phrases or pieces of sentences or whole sentences. Trying to read by sounding out each letter would be very slow reading.

[CAllenDoudna]

Originally Posted by malamute

That's horrible! Very hard to read -- regular English seems okay to me.

What I think it is - we don't really read by sounding out words, our eyes scan entire phrases or pieces of sentences or whole sentences. Trying to read by sounding out each letter would be very slow reading.

Then why did we ever give up pictograms?

Hard to read? Anything is the first time.

ghoti.

[maf763]

What does a fish have to do with anything?

English simply isn't a consistently phonetic language, and I don't see a way for it to organically become one.

[bg7]

I've got an even better idea. Why not invent a completely new logical language. Call it something catchy - like "Esperanto".

Sounds like a great idea, let us know.

[jtab4994]

Dude, srsly? Sounds a lot like Klingon.

[psikeyhackr]

The English language is really dumb in terms of spelling but you would have to kill millions of traditionalists to make any change.

How could spelling bees be any fun without illogical nonsense? I hear they don't have spelling bees in Spanish.

psik

[jtab4994]

Originally Posted by psikeyhackr

I hear they don't have spelling bees in Spanish.

They don't have them in Chinese either.

[bg7]

Originally Posted by psikeyhackr

The English language is really dumb in terms of spelling but you would have to kill millions of traditionalists to make any change.

How could spelling bees be any fun without illogical nonsense? I hear they don't have spelling bees in Spanish.

psik

That's the history of English language - some of those words were, originally, pronounced differently, more in line with their current spelling. In addition, the wealth of early written English (not Early or Middle English, necessarily) started putting things down in a hard copy form many centuries ago even though the spoken language evolved on. Add in the cannibalism and consumption of many words from other languages (Inuit words, wholesale adopting of French words etc etc), and a mess is starting to happen.

On top of that, some of the spellings do make sense in view of their French, German or Latin roots.
And if the English hadn't gone around attacking other countries from so many different continents and taking them over, spreading English by force, the language would likely be a lot simpler.

(In addition, you have to wonder why, in America for example, people deliberately mispronounce words. . "Utter" in America is generally pronounced "udder", for example... At least nowadays. Watch a 1930's movie and it is still "utter")

Sure its a little difficult in elementary school but soon becomes second nature to most.

[Old Monkey]

Originally Posted by bg7

That's the history of English language - some of those words were, originally, pronounced differently, more in line with their current spelling. In addition, the wealth of early written English (not Early or Middle English, necessarily) started putting things down in a hard copy form many centuries ago even though the spoken language evolved on. Add in the cannibalism and consumption of many words from other languages (Inuit words, wholesale adopting of French words etc etc), and a mess is starting to happen.

On top of that, some of the spellings do make sense in view of their French, German or Latin roots.
And if the English hadn't gone around attacking other countries from so many different continents and taking them over, spreading English by force, the language would likely be a lot simpler.

(In addition, you have to wonder why, in America for example, people deliberately mispronounce words. . "Utter" in America is generally pronounced "udder", for example... At least nowadays. Watch a 1930's movie and it is still "utter")

Sure its a little difficult in elementary school but soon becomes second nature to most.

+1