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English is the world's first global lingua franca, and has so much momentum it's likely to stay that way for centuries.
There's a lot to recommend English: a huge vocabulary, simple grammar, and expressive flexibility.
And then there's spelling.
Should we reform English spelling to make it phonetically consistent? That means as long as you can pronounce a word, you can spell it once you know the rules. No exceptions to memorize.
For those who would say this is impossible, Chinese provided an example of an undertaking of similar scope when it simplified its characters.
There are only two downsides to this I can see, the first being that English's loose phonetics currently allow for more verbal diversity than, say, German. English dialects and pidgins all use the same spelling, with some minor differences, yet are pronounced differently. A stricter phonetical system would privilege a single dialect.
The second downside is that many historical written works would be inaccessible to those who did not also have some familiarity with traditional English spelling. These could be translated however.
As to the upsides, they are almost too numerous to list. The main one I see is that it would make English even easier to learn as a second language and cement its status as the language of humanity for centuries if not millennia.
The English language that we speak today is already quite different from how English was spoken and written in the time of Geoffrey Chaucer, and the English language continues to evolve with neologisms added to it all the time.
One thing for which we may all be grateful is that, even with our neologisms, we now at least have a standardized English which we did not have in the past. The advent of printed dictionaries has made this possible, along with the work of lexicographers such as Noah Webster (of Webster's Dictionary fame) who was chosen by Alexander Hamilton to edit the Federalist Party newspaper.
Advocating a reform of the English language through making the spelling of English words all phonetic would be a step backwards, rather than forwards, IMO. It may even complicate the language, rather than simplify it, as there are numerous additional letters that would need to be added to the language's alphabet in order to accommodate specific pronunciation of words in conformance with the International Phonetic Alphabet.
I think it best not to attempt to force any artificial "improvements" on the English language.
This situation is akin to that of the inefficient QWERTY keyboard.
Would the change be worth it in terms of returns - ie, efficiency - in the long run? Absolutely. But the hassle would be monumental in the short-term. Then there's the fact that it only works as long as everyone (or nearly everyone) is onboard. For those reasons, the investment is not one worth making in the classic sense, and is unworkable in any case because for that reason the possibility of getting even a majority of people to go along with it (and, again, you'd need much more than a mere majority for it to be workable) is all but impossible.
As someone who speaks with a distinct regional accent, how is that possible? I pronounce Saturday "Sauerday", some folks I know pronounce vegetable, veg e table, almost as if each syllable is a separate word; same with vehicle which is pronounced v ick ile; tomato, some pronounce as the English do; pen and pin are pronounced the same and on and on. And let's not get even into how they speak English in Appalachia or on Tangier Island in VA - many modern English speakers can't even understand the old timers there.
I once had a friend visit from New England. We drove to SW VA, he couldn't understand half of what those folks down there were saying, their regional accent was so thick.
What I am saying is that our language is changing all the time. Also there is no agency in control of these changes. But should there be is the question? We could possibly make an effort to unite the world with small yearly changes. If we introduced a few words into every language every year, eventually we would be able to understand everybody without an interpreter. If they were 'phonetically consistent' that would help. Of course many languages do not use our alphabet so that would be a problem trying to reach a consensus on how to move forward. Even the Chinese have adopted some of our words, but they have their own spelling for those words.
It may even complicate the language, rather than simplify it, as there are numerous additional letters that would need to be added to the language's alphabet in order to accommodate specific pronunciation of words in conformance with the International Phonetic Alphabet.
We need not introduce new letters, only new letter combinations. This would make some words longer, but I think the trade-off is worth it.
As someone who speaks with a distinct regional accent, how is that possible? I pronounce Saturday "Sauerday", some folks I know pronounce vegetable, veg e table, almost as if each syllable is a separate word; same with vehicle which is pronounced v ick ile; tomato, some pronounce as the English do; pen and pin are pronounced the same and on and on. And let's not get even into how they speak English in Appalachia or on Tangier Island in VA - many modern English speakers can't even understand the old timers there.
I once had a friend visit from New England. We drove to SW VA, he couldn't understand half of what those folks down there were saying, their regional accent was so thick.
Non-standard dialects are already declining because of mass media. A reform of spelling would hasten their disappearance by privileging a standard dialect with spelling.
The hard part is which dialect that should be.
I see a bigger problem as the difficulty of some non-native speakers in pronouncing certain English sounds compared to native speakers. For example, China has far more English language learners than Appalachia, and certain sounds are difficult to form coming from a Chinese base.
Finding verbal common ground should be the most important criterion for selecting a standard dialect, more important than notions of proper English or respecting folkways.
I can see an argument for delaying such a reform effort until the world has organically settled on a standard English dialect. However I see the reform effort as inevitable given that at some point everyone on earth will either be speaking or studying English in this century.
What I am saying is that our language is changing all the time. Also there is no agency in control of these changes. But should there be is the question? We could possibly make an effort to unite the world with small yearly changes. If we introduced a few words into every language every year, eventually we would be able to understand everybody without an interpreter. If they were 'phonetically consistent' that would help. Of course many languages do not use our alphabet so that would be a problem trying to reach a consensus on how to move forward. Even the Chinese have adopted some of our words, but they have their own spelling for those words.
There would need to be a governing body.
It need not take the form of an academy as in France. Rather because most writing will be electronic in the future, translation software would shoulder the burden during the transition. Translating spelling is pretty easy for software to do, since it doesn't involve grammar or meaning but is just a one-to-one lookup once the dialect has been chosen.
The organization maintaining the translation software would be the governing body.
It would not be difficult to make a browser extension that automatically translated words back and forth during the transition period.
This situation is akin to that of the inefficient QWERTY keyboard.
Would the change be worth it in terms of returns - ie, efficiency - in the long run? Absolutely. But the hassle would be monumental in the short-term. Then there's the fact that it only works as long as everyone (or nearly everyone) is onboard. For those reasons, the investment is not one worth making in the classic sense, and is unworkable in any case because for that reason the possibility of getting even a majority of people to go along with it (and, again, you'd need much more than a mere majority for it to be workable) is all but impossible.
I think you're discounting the fact that in the future most English speakers will have learned the language as a second language during formal schooling, if that is not the case already. These non-native learners will not have the same preconceived notions of how English should be pronounced or spelled, and will be much more malleable.
They have the most to gain with this reform, will be the vast majority, and would probably spearhead it. I agree that the most resistance would come from native English speakers for whom this is less of a problem.
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