I remember reading this before, but don't remember who wrote it or anything like that. The place I got it from said something about Mark Twain.
Quote:A plan for the improvement of spelling in the English language
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter “c” would be dropped to be replased either by “k” or “s”, and likewise “x” would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which “c” would be retained would be the “ch” formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform “w” spelling, so that “which” and “one” would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish “y” replasing it with “i” and Iear 4 might fiks the “g/j” anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez “c”, “y” and “x” — bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez — tu riplais “ch”, “sh”, and “th” rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
Holy cow, how could he have predicted today's internet English?!
Mark Twain is a long time ago
.
He noticed that people are getting lazier. Its a safe bet to say soon programs like dragon will become more popular and cheaper, and then later, reading brainwaves will be how we type.
I have been saying this for years, it's about time they introduced simplified English.
Here are some examples of what I think should be included in changes:
- Replacement of C with K, except C would become the sound of the ch combination (ie. chew would become coo (see below that double letters become the name of the letter)
- Removal of silent letters
- Double letter says the name of the letter (instead of having a silent letter) in all cases
- The oo combination should be replaced with ew, for example zoo would be zew
- Things should be spelt according to how they sound, for example few would be fuu (remember double letter would make the sound), cake would be kaak. If there are many options the shortest is preferred.
- Q would take the sound of Qu
- Removal of homophones (different spelling, different meaning, same sound)
- Remove X, fox would be foks
- G should never make a J sound, if it does a J should be used.
I know I am opening a can of worms here but it would save so much hassle for people if English was made sensible. Of course I wouldn't expect a change like this to happen overnight but within a century would be reasonable.
The first thing I thought of when I saw the subject was Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction.
There is one thing that always puzzled me about the English language.Why is it that for certain words, substituting the first letter, changes the pronunciation completely.
For example:
Comb (long o sound)
Bomb (short o sound)
Tomb (double o sound)
No wonder people (even English Speaking people themselves) have trouble learning the different rules.
(2010-07-17, 05:32 AM)x-Treme Wrote: [ -> ]There is one thing that always puzzled me about the English language.Why is it that for certain words, substituting the first letter, changes the pronunciation completely.
For example:
Comb (long o sound)
Bomb (short o sound)
Tomb (double o sound)
No wonder people (even English Speaking people themselves) have trouble learning the different rules.
But as a native speaker you learn as child to say it correctly. I am a native Dutch speaker and we got some ridiculous dumb rules but when I am not sure if a word is spelled or pronounced correctly I just say it out loud and I can hear immediately if its correct or not.
Well, can't really blame people for making it simpler, seeing as English is pretty rétarded in the first place.
English is one of the simplest languages IMO. There are no accents or anything like that and the verb conjugations are much easier, as well as the subjects and genre.
(2010-07-17, 02:55 PM)combus Wrote: [ -> ]English is one of the simplest languages IMO. There are no accents or anything like that and the verb conjugations are much easier, as well as the subjects and genre.
/Agree