English Orthography Reform

[ol bofosh]

The universal reform idea to me is like the IAL idea: it's a nice idea, but not really practical. If we want universal, we kinda already have an orthography that works like that and is generally accepted.

Not practical? How so? A universal speling reform absolutely seems practical to me; in fact, as you point out, the curent speling sistem is already fairly good at representing al dialects. It would be easy to create a universal speling reform by simply adjusting parts of the curent orthography that have no consistent distinction in any dialect. Of course, it's imposible to create a purely phonemic speling sistem that is universal/pan-dialectical. But there are several elements of Modern English speling that cause a large proportion of speling mistakes for speakers of al dialects: two examples are the distinction between soft c and s at the start of words, and doubled consonant leters (especialy in Latinate words).

Does a reform only qualify as such in your view if it completely reworks the entire orthography?

I recon that the eus ov dhe reeform itsélf wud be verry practical, butt trying to implement it is sumthing els. Thair's plenty of resístens agénst it, and betwéen reeformerz, dhair seemz tu be too much disagréement and competíshon for eny seereas efort tu gain moméntum. Eeven wun simpel reform like SR1 (consístently reprezént /ɛ/ as <e>) woz tryd and testid in Ostráilea, butt never tuk of.

Untíl I see sumthing difrent, my oanly hoap iz dhat Inglish wil bicúm so big and dyvérs that dhe hoal edifis of Tradíshnal Speling sloaly crumbelz, and loacal dialects wil fynd it mor practical to creáit dhair oan orthógrafeez. Not in my lyftym, tho.

[Xing]

I'll note that the use of alternating doubled and single letters in verb forms, like "confer" vs. "conferring," appears to be a tricky part of the current spelling system for many English writers despite the relatively simple principles that can be used to predict the spelling in most cases (word stress placement and the use of some letters, like "l").

Those problems don't concern doubled letters per se, but how the orthography should deal with morphology. (Say you want to add the suffix "-ing" to the stem "bet", should the resulting word be spelt "beting" - which might suggest an unchecked vowel - or "betting" with a doubled vowel? Similar issues arise with silent <e>'s, where the current English orthography allows for different spellings of some words.)

Ha, I'm too afraid to even make a proposal for the representation of front high vowel diaphonemes! There's so many mergers that occurred in the standard dialects, like MEAT=MEET=KEY, that I have no idea if the current spelling is actually "inconsistent" here or just a faithful representation of the complicated history of these sounds in English. It's sort of a Chesterton's fence problem: if I don't understand the reason why "conceive" isn't spelled "conceve," how do I know there isn't a good reason after all?

Well, the question is what you would consider to be a "good reason". Do you consider faithfulness to a word's etymology a "good reason" when it comes to orthography? If so, one could claim there's a "good reason" to spell it <conceive>. From a purely phonological perspective, one could claim that <conceeve>, <conceve>, <conceave>etc. would be equally "good" spellings.

[Sumelic]

Those problems don't concern doubled letters per se, but how the orthography should deal with morphology. (Say you want to add the suffix "-ing" to the stem "bet", should the resulting word be spelt "beting" - which might suggest an unchecked vowel - or "betting" with a doubled vowel? Similar issues arise with silent <e>'s, where the current English orthography allows for different spellings of some words.)

Surely they concern both?

There are two current methods of indicating vowel quality in English: doubled letters and digraphs. I think digraphs are a more straightforward representation, but obviously opinions can vary. So in the schemes I prefer, "bete, beting" with /i/ would not even be a possibility. (Even in modern English spelling, silent e is used less commonly after e than it is after other vowels). But in any case, there is widespread ambiguity already in words like "cathedral," "heroine," or "very".

There is another reason I dislike doubled letters that I didn't mention: I think they look stupid.

Ha, I'm too afraid to even make a proposal for the representation of front high vowel diaphonemes! There's so many mergers that occurred in the standard dialects, like MEAT=MEET=KEY, that I have no idea if the current spelling is actually "inconsistent" here or just a faithful representation of the complicated history of these sounds in English. It's sort of a Chesterton's fence problem: if I don't understand the reason why "conceive" isn't spelled "conceve," how do I know there isn't a good reason after all?

Well, the question is what you would consider to be a "good reason". Do you consider faithfulness to a word's etymology a "good reason" when it comes to orthography? If so, one could claim there's a "good reason" to spell it <conceive>. From a purely phonological perspective, one could claim that <conceeve>, <conceve>, <conceave>etc. would be equally "good" spellings.

For one thing, I find it a little tricky to decide what spelling is most etymology "faithful." Many words have come through multiple languages; an English word might be borrowed from French, which borrowed it from Latin, which borrowed it from Greek, with new sound changes and orthographic adjustments at each stage. Which stage should the "etymological" spelling in English represent? Taking the example of "conceive," the <ei> digraph is only etymologically faithful to the Old/Anglo-French "conceivre"; it doesn't correspond to the Latin "concipere." And moving more broadly to the issue of other related but non-ancestral forms, it doesn't correspond with the modern French (concevoir) or even with all of the morphologically related English words ("conceit" yes, "conception" no, "concept" no).

In my opinion, etymology only matters when it affects the diaphonemic representation of a word. Remember that I'm talking about a universal/pan-dialectical spelling reform. There are very few phonological mergers that are complete in all dialects. For an individual with the MEET-MEAT merger, "conceeve" is a "good" representation of the spelling. But for an individual without this merger, what would the vowel quality be? According to Wikipedia, there is actually another merger involved here: most dialects, in addition to MEET-MEAT, have also merged a separate KEY lexical set. (I don't know how reliable Wikipedia actually is here.) If there is a living dialect that has not yet merged any of these vowels, then both "conceeve" and "conceave" (and "conceve") are not accurate diaphonemic representations.

But... complicating the matter is that "conceave" is actually attested as a historical spelling of "conceive." So perhaps the KEY-MEAT merger is old enough after all to be represented as merged in the spelling system. In addition, the modern spelling <ea> apparently corresponds, or at least corresponded, to /ɛɪ/ in some words for some dialects, which actually have distinct CREAM and MEAT lexical sets for originally long vs. lengthened vowels.

The above is why I get confused dealing with this area of English phonology. It does seem to me that "conceve" or "conceave" would be better spellings on balance.

[Salmoneus]

It's sort of a Chesterton's fence problem: if I don't understand the reason why "conceive" isn't spelled "conceve," how do I know there isn't a good reason after all?

OK, why do you even knowe the term "Chestertens fence problem"? I thought I was the ownly one who knew that mettephor...
[It doesn't realy apligh. We knowe why the fence is there (diacronnics) and we knowe the reasen no longer aplighs]


Anyway, I eust to think that if a reform were to take place, it woud be best if it were a suttle one, like this one, for instence. But now I think we're all missing the real problem with English spelling: its too phonemic! Werd recognishen woud be much easyer if mor arcayic or obsceur spellings were employ'd...

[ol bofosh]

hupér-fossilisod réforme.

[Adarain]

I stil think yu ar guing tha rung wi. Dunt shu mur distinkshans, simplifi it dawn tu wat's nidad.

[pittmirg]

I stil think yu ar guing tha rung wi

The sinful and schismatic Latin way!

Here's my old attempt at Middle English Cyrillic. (which arose from my musings about how it'd be if English had a hopelessly outdated Cyrillic orthography instead of a Latin one).

[Nortaneous]

ай хэд дъ сейм айдийы е ўайл бэк, юзинъ сырилик фор инглиш

дъер изнт е гуд ўей ту хэндл /ŋ/ ўидъаўт спешл кериктрз, быт ху керз

дъерз олсоў ноў нийд ту дистингўиш хай лэкс ваўлз фрым хай тенс ваўлз ин маноўсилэбик ўырдз, соў "ту" анд "е" инстед ыв "туў" анд "ей"

[pittmirg]

дъер изнт е гуд ўей ту хэндл /ŋ/ ўидъаўт спешл кериктрз, быт ху керз

Ѳє клѡсъст ѳігг ін ѳє класікал Сѵрілік із <гг> */ŋg/, у҅іч уаз сꙋмтімъз ю҇зъд ін Ѡлдъ Чірчь Славонік ін уордьз сꙋч алс <єваггєлиꙗ> (џꙋст лікъ ін Грєкъ ов кѹрсъ).

дъерз олсоў ноў нийд ту дистингўиш хай лэкс ваўлз фрым хай тенс ваўлз ин маноўсилэбик ўырдз, соў "ту" анд "е" инстед ыв "туў" анд "ей"

Моносѵлабік уіѳѹт а кѡда, ю҇ мѣнъ.

[Aleks]

I didn't want to make a new thread talking about English spelling reform so I wanted to reply here. Tell me do you guys think these slight changes to words would be good? I only have two examples but these could be possible.

Spelling changes
sure > shure reason being if shore has an "sh" then so should sure.

Pronounciation changes
to /tu/ > to /tə/

[Adarain]

Chinging tha urthugrafi is fin, but artifishali mudifiing spich gus aganst mi prinsipals.

[Znex]

Pronounciation changes
to /tu/ > to /tə/

This thread isn't really about pronunciation changes, I don't think. </negativeconcordftw>

Besides that, my dialect already does that when <to> is unstressed, which is most of the time. And I think quite a few other English dialects do it.

[ol bofosh]

Ai'm luking at the IPA tcart for Inglic daielèkts and thinking ebáut küming üp widh e riiform for iitc wün, büt dhei cal ool bi beist on dhe seim speling paternz.

If ai du it, ai mait iiven cer it hir. Süm ar ferli simpel, büt dhat SAE luks e bit komplikeitid.

[Xonen]

Spelling changes
sure > shure reason being if shore has an "sh" then so should sure

It doesn't really follow from "shore" specifically, but yes, <sh> is the normal spelling for /S/ in English, so that would indeed make sense.

Pronounciation changes

Back, foul demon!

to /tu/ > to /tə/

As pointed out above, this already happens in most dialects of English, except in stressed positions. And English doesn't seem to allow /ə/ in stressed position at all, in fact.

[ol bofosh]

Yes, euzhaly, butt I woz surpýzd tu heer [bɪ.ˈkəz] from an RP accent on dhe neuz wuns.

[Znex]

Yes, euzhaly, butt I woz surpýzd tu heer [bɪ.ˈkəz] from an RP accent on dhe neuz wuns.

'cos because isn't usually stressed.

[Salmoneus]

In SSBE, it's usually /b@'kQz/. I have heard the stressed-schwa form before, though.

[qwed117]

In SSBE, it's usually /b@'kQz/. I have heard the stressed-schwa form before, though.

I thought it's /b1'kVz/, just that the V is replaced by @.

[Prinsessa]

ēngliṡ is dym

[Birdlang]

JƐS ƎT ƎƧ.
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