ell!
anker…
No the problem is that you use too many different letters to reproduce the same sounds.
LOL!!
So English can’t spell english, while that far away ex-colony can?
yeah, galanthus! I’m in favor of replacing our currently indeterminate system with an entirely accurate system: the standard linguistic spelling system. After a few months its just as easy to read as English (and almost as easy to read as ALL CAPS ;))
I would have composed this post in it, but since the characters are not standard, they won’t come through on the linguistically-biased web
There is no “standard linguistic spelling system” for English, or for any language with a large number of speakers. Each region, if recorded phonemically using the IPA or a similar system, will actually produce different “spellings” for the same words.
Indeed, if one wishes to get phonetic rather than phonemic, the “spelling” becomes even more widely variant.
Welcome to Þe boards! I Þink I like Ðee Ælready!
Ðis free use of the familiar likes me not, but in Þis day of mandatory informality, I can see why you would use it, Þus saying “Þou” instead of “you”. Ðus, I will likewise adopt Þy convention. But Þou writest in error when Þou usest the “ash” “Æ” in "already. “Æ” is to be used in other circumstances.
And wissest Þu se underscide betwix Þ and Ð, ic wundre?
Þou art ri3t; I have ever greater affected the Englysh of More and Marlowe than thys barbaric tongue of their Anglo-Saxon forefathers. And I wot not what is this “underscide” of which Latro speaketh.
OMFGROFL u guyz! It’s like medieval l33tsp33k!
Latro’s sentence probably translates to:
“And I wonder if you know the difference between Þ and Ð?”
Where underscide is translated as “difference”, although it could be plural.
Yeah, that’s about what I guessed, but I meant I don’t know the difference. (My Old English education was sadly deficient, consisting mostly of the professor telling long and rambling stories about his encounters with Eccentric Librarians of Europe, so I’d always vaguely assumed that the difference between eth and thorn was mostly decorative. Guess not.)
I agree. I’ve been for eliminating c, q, x and the use of y as a vowel for a long time.
C is either sounded like K or S. Since we already have K and S, we don’t need C.
As has already been said, Q can be replaced K or KW depending on the word.
X can be replaced by KS, KZ, or Z. Aleksander, Alekzander, and zylophone. X disappearing except in math is no problem. Higher mathematics makes use of many Greek letters. X would simply be accepted as the symbol for an axis or the unknown the same way Pi or Theta is accepted.
Y has a unique sound as a consonant. However, it can be replaced by I or E when used as a vowel.
I am against any systems which uses a single letter to stand for a sound that can be produced by two others.
I believe that English spelling should be standardised. As it is, there is a bewildering mix of Latinate and Teutonic constructions and rules.
According to this site,
Truly?
I wonder if you could share a word in which Y has a unique sound as a consonant?
Yell.
Yield.
Yellow.
Yaw.
Ya get the point.
Many highly respected sources have suggested removing C, Q, and X from the English language. For instance, in 1900 the Ladies’ Home Journal predicted that these letters would be gone by the end of the century.
Then, 7 months ago, I made that very same suggestion in this thread, in response to others who suggested eliminating K, S, Y, or Z. As I wrote there:
The different spellings would be acceptable: it would introduce people to other’s accents. Most words would be perfectly clear once you knew what accent they were speaking in.
The new alphabet:
Character Sound
A A
E E
I I
O O
U U
B B
C Sh
D D
F F, Ph, Gh
G Hard G
H H
J J, Soft G
K K, Hard C
L L
M M
N N
P P
R R
S S, Soft C
T T
V V
W W
X Ch
Y Zh, Dh, Jh (the zhhh sound in “azure” )
Z Z, X when it sounds like Z
Þ Hard Th (like in “Thick”)
Ð Soft Th (like in “This”)
Add hats to the vowels as neccesary. All consonant letters produce one and only one sound. We have revived the ancient characters of Thorn and Edh for the various Th sounds, and have repurposed existing letters for the various other sounds…C is now Sh, X is Ch, Y is Zh. We still have Q unassigned if anyone can think of a commonly used consonantal sound with no single character to represent it.
Lemur: We need a “y” as in the first consonent sound in “yes”.
Actually, I don’t. I pronounce each of those as a long “ee”, spoken very quickly.