Adjectives are words we use to describe a noun. They usually come before it: -------- English

Aj'ektivz ar werdz we euz tu discreib aa noun. Dhay eushuauly cum bifor' it. --------Anglish

I've thought about this new spelling since I started to speak. ---------- English

I'v thaut about dhis new spel'ing sins I start'id tu speek. -----------Anglish


Unstressed Sounds are replaced by real ones.
Ex:
a book ------ aa bwauk/buek
an eagle ----- aan eeg'aul.

Modern "Logical"

archaic "arcayik"
dumb "dum"
calm "caam"
eye "ey"
psalm "saam"
give "giv"
have "hav"
blue "blu"
new "new"
fool "fool"
though "dho"
to "tu"
two "tu"
too "tu"
light "leit"
slow "slo"
money "muny"
baby "baiby"
father "faadher"
soup "soop"
one "wun"
once "wuns"
his "hiz"
hers "herz"
was "wuz"
water "wauter"
coyote "kioate"
see "se"
sea "se"
beach "beech"
care "cær"
next "next"
debt "det"
down "doun"
dawn "daun"
daughter "dauter"
honor "honer"
honey "huny"
duty "deuty"
beauty "beuty" "dooty"
beautiful "beutifl"
action "akshun"
question "queSchun"
scan, skill, school, schedule ------------"scan, skil, scool, skedeul or shedeul"

Many foreign words are used in English with no English pronunciation.

Examples:
machine,
chic,
police,
promise,
doctrine,
medicine,
etc...

Ññ is from Spanish and from other languages in Europe. English is the only language that does not use Ññ, GNgn, HNhn, or something similar to this sound.

The most common is Ññ because the Spanish is the most spoken Romance language.

Ññ should be put in English alphabet.


Ññ can be called in English as "eñ" followed by n


Look: Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz
Foreign Sounds: Zh Kh Ññ ----names of them: zhee, ekh, eñ

The only reason why English spelling can't be reformed, is because the pronunciation won't be like any Latin language origin.

If this event would've happened a would sound "ah", e as "eh", i as "e," o as "aw", and u as "oo."

love (loáv) Latin soldier really never arrived in England.

This is not a fact for many of you.

Some stupid people like mjd, Tom, Smith, Damian, Jose, and whatever the name is, are making stupid spelling reform.

They are from Antimoon of anti-English, because they are Polish.

What a bad English they really write!

It's false they speak English how they should.

I think "boat" is well, not spelt "boet."

New, not nue, nu, noo, or nooh.

Guys of other planet ideas, learn the earth main language how it is cultivated.

I almost forgot "active" should be spelled like "aktiv"

Ey liv. "I have."
Yu hav. "You have."
We bihaiv. "We behave."

All my family uses this spelling reform. We want to be recognized. Probably as a new language derived from the English as this modern English came from other ones.

Something of mine. This is my criteria.


Speling Rifôrm uv dhe Inglish. Think in Inglish, not in wirdnes.
“Spelling Reform of the English. Think in English, not in weirdness.

English Inglish
cake “caik”
sleigh “slay”
A “ay”, “a”

chief “cheef”
sea “se”
E “e”

bite “beit”
lie “ly”
I “Ey am so hapy or Ei’m so hapy.” “I” az aa vowaul

note “noat”
slow “slo”
O “o” az aa vowaul and “oh” az an interjek’shon

cute “keut”
due “dew”
U “yu”,“ew”, “u”

brute “broot”
blue “blu”
fluent “fluent”

book “bwauk”

twice “tweis”
eye “ey”

precious “preshus”
beautiful “beutefaul”
question “ques’chun” [Ety. from “quest” + ‘chon, but t is deleted]
action “ak’shun” [Ety. from “akt” + ‘shon, but t is deleted]
vision “vizhun”
island “eilend”
islet “eilit”
average “avrij”
active “aktive”
sergeant “sarjent”

daughter “dauter”
law “law”
down “doun”
plough “plow”

Do you think English spelling is very easy?

Edited by author 02-11-2003 08:42 PM
This idea keeps popping up (George Bernard Shaw was a proponent), but as logical as it is, it will *never* happen, barring some totalitarian takeover of the country.

1) The "inertia" of standard spelling is too great compared to the benefits of simpler spelling. What do you do about the billions of printed items already in the old spellings? They could never be economically replaced with nuspel versions, so most of us would have to know two different spelling systems. It makes more sense to stick with one, as illogical as it is.

2) The benefits are reaped by young children and foreigners, while the costs are incurred by everyone else.

Just like Esperanto, by the way....

However, I'll admit it has been done in the past. See the Soviet example:

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/wrussref.htm

Didn't Mark Twain create the defining work on this subject?

I've long been fascinated by spelling reform and alphabets, but hand't heard of unifon until now. Thanks.

The regularity and uniformity are appealing, but I'm far from convinced that they represent overall superiority. In fact, I'm not sure we can say with assurance what criteria to use to rank one spelling system as superior to another. Surely, information theory has something to do with it, but who's to say the human brain isn't better at grasping things when there are irregularities?

Steven Pinker's work on irregular verb and plural forms is interesting. Applying the same logic that rates Unifon as superior to English spelling at a different level, it's clear that irregular forms such as "ran" and "mice" should be replaced with "runned" and "mouses". In fact, young children often make the mistake of using the regular rule when the "correct" form is irregular. Yet, these irregular forms are surprisingly stable (they do fade over time, when the word becomes very rare; the past tense of "thrive" used to be "throve" but is now "thrived"). Is this an example of human stupidity, or is it a way in which we're collectively optimizing language in a way that's not yet fully understood? My money would be on the latter.

Incidentally, among fans of systematically designed alphabets, Korean Hangul is considered to be one of the finest. For a brief history, see:

http://www.sigmainstitute.com/koreanonline/hangul_history.shtml

The IPA doesn't have much more than 40 symbols... its level of granularity is still pretty coarse compared to spoken language, which has a lot more going on than phonemes. If you look through Kenyon and Knott's _Pronouncing Dictionary of American English_, you'll see that for many words the Southern variant is listed as being the same as the New York City variant. And after I was through being boggled by that, I could hear that what sounds got dropped and what the vowel sounds were were the same in those cases, and warrant identical representation in IPA. Needless to say, though, the effect is still very different.

there's also the shaw alphabet http://members.aol.com/RSRICHMOND/shavian.html

which is the same idea but prettier.

On looking at the Unifon alphabet, I'm even less impressed.

First, it's got several needlessly illogical aspects. If "c" is no longer needed for its regular purpose, why is the "ch" sound marked by a "c" with a slash through it? Why is "zh" represented by a backwards z, but "sh" is represented by an s with a slash?

Second, I notice that the alphabet is not universal, it's English-only. There is no character for the sound represented in German by "ch", which though it doesn't exist in English is very common in other languages and even in some foreign words adopted into English (like "chutzpa"). And while the alphabet distinguishes voiced and unvoiced "th" - which it doesn't really have to in English - it doesn't distinguish voiced and unvoiced L, which again doesn't make any difference in English but is important in other languages, such as Polish.

Besides the problem of "whose pronunciation do you use?", some simplified spellings are just too damn cryptic. And I'm not talking about that stupid in-group nonsense with the 0's and 1's and k's for o and l and c: that's -trying- to be cryptic.

A while ago I saw a store whose sign advertised "shuz". I'd pronounce that with the u of "shut" and honestly did not know what they were selling until I had a chance to look in the window. A few months later, I noticed they'd changed the sign to read "shoes".

Edited by author 02-06-2003 11:26 AM
I fixed the bug - thanks to all of you for pointing it out.

Here's the real irony:

I clipped that factoid - with the misspelled "seperately" - from one of the <i>Spelling Reformer's web sites<i> - www.freespelling.com. To see what I'm talking about, click on the "Welcome" button and scroll down.

Sheesh. That's the last time I post at 4am.

-Andrew