Define Cynical Fan Forums

ConnnnQUESSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT Society, Þe, members and honoured guest Tai,

I call your attention today to propose another revision of the English language writing system. This is, without a doubt, the boldest change I've brought forth thus far, but I think you will agree that it is in the true spirit of the society. Keep in mind that this is merely in the discussion phase and please take liberty to build upon and make changes to my proposal. That said, I'll begin.

English writing sucks. The currently accepted alphabet of 26 letters is insufficient. We need one with atleast 31 letters to better represent the sounds spoken in English. Before I get into my plan, let me expound upon some of the problems in English.

Aaaaugh spelling. I'm tired of trying to remember if the i comes before the e, or how to spell silly words like "bureaucracy". And can someone tell me why "thorough" has eight letters? As I see it, the main problem is vowels: they're placed capriciously and make no sense. Infact, meny sentences remeen cempletely reedeble when e sengle vewel es sebsteteted fer every ether vewel. Here's another example to illustrate the confusion:

Pot cow mow blood soot boot.

Take a moment and sound out each word. One vowel, six distinctly different sounds. The main reason English words are so hard to spell is because every vowel sounds like every other vowel. One of the least deviating vowels is probably 'y'; I'll get to that in a moment. Consonants have a similar problem, though not to the same extent. 'g' sounds like 'j', 'c' sounds like 'k', etc.

Let's analyze the English alphabet (fig. 2, below) a bit further. And don't pay too much credence to what they taught you in school. Yes, I called 'y' a vowel. Everyone knows that it behaves like a vowel sometimes. What you might not know is that it behaves like a vowel ALL the time.

Look at the word "you". "you" doesn't have any consonants; it's made up of two vowels pronounced as a single syllable: "ee" and "oo" -> "ee-oo" -> "eeoo" -> "you". It makes the same sound with words that end in 'y': "main-lee" -> "mainly".

So although English likes to think it, it doesn't have only five vowels. Infact it has seven. How seven? The letter 'w' is a vowel too (Why do you think it's called Double-u?).

Take the word "cow"-- the first two letters are pronounced the same way as the first two letters of the word "cat". Take that "ka" sound and add an "oo". "ka-oo". Then shorten it up to one syllable: "ka-oo" -> "kaoo" -> "cow". Then try this: take that "oo" and add "ay", "oo-ay" -> "ooay" -> "way". W's, infact, always make an oo sound (though are sometimes used as a silent indicator in words like "saw" where the w is not pronounced). Conceivably, you could spell the word "loop" as "lwp".

We've established that the English alphabet (fig. 2, below again) has 19 consonants and 7 vowels, right? Right.

As for the basic English consonants, they represent 16 distinct sounds: b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, z. Many consonants have more than one sound associated with them, and (no surprize to anybody:) three (c, q, x) have no unique sound associated to them at all.

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

Aa Ää Bb Cc Çç Dd Ã

This would be difficult, at best, to work out. It would be like switching the US to the metric system: not gonna happen. It would be like trying to switch every English speaker to, say, Chinese (though slightly less confusing)

Um, I just did this a couple months ago. Remember? The post I made here that was gibberish? That's what it was about--only I was too lazy to actually explain myself. This is the key:
(Since each symbol is a sound, not a letter, they're identified as the underlined sounds in words for clarity.)

ʌ isle
ɤ eel
ƹ age
ɸ all
Ȣ old
ƕ ooze
ſ it
ɕ edge
ʚ at
ƣ arm
ʉ object
ʊ good
ɐ ow
ƴ you
ƪ utter
ɵ her
ƥ b
v p
x d
ʞ t
ɻ m
ʄ f
ɽ no
ȑ song
ø jew
ʁ gave
ƙ kite
ɔ lord
ƃ r
ʨ v
ʕ s
ʧ h
ɚ woe
ʑ ye
ƨ zone
ɧ thou
ƫ thumb
ʂ azure
ɲ what
ɮ sh
ƍ ch

I propohs that if u want tu mayk englysh easyr tu reed and wryt, then u need onli tu spel al ov it ecsactli as it sownds. As Englysh was wryten in ye old tym, ecsept with the letr S, not f.

Odd that you use "ç" for "sh". In the Romance languages, "ç" is really "th", so perhaps "Ş" or "Ŝ" for "sh" would be more appropiate.
And I don't see why you included "ng" as the symbol "q". "Q", in fact, was the Latin equivalent of the Semitic "chet" or "khet" (as in CHannukah, or an exaggerated "h"), but the phoneme was lost over time, though not completely. In "King's Spanish", you can just hear the "h" whenever someone pronounces "q".
Back to "ng", if you had done it as "gn" or even "nj" or "ny", THEN we have a true separate phoneme, which in Spanish is represented by "Ñ" (say "n" but with your teeth together).
Yes, you can borrow that letter
And you omitted the phoneme "ir" as in "fir". There are cases in which the English "r" becomes a very weak vowel (though never thrilled like it happens in Spanish). Maybe "ê" or "ë" could represent that.

And what about "wh" as in "when"?

If you want to make the writing truer to the phonetics, just use the pronunciation guides in dictionaries.

Odd that you use "ç" for "sh". In the Romance languages, "ç" is really "th", so perhaps "Ş" or "Ŝ" for "sh" would be more appropiate.
And I don't see why you included "ng" as the symbol "q". "Q", in fact, was the Latin equivalent of the Semitic "chet" or "khet" (as in CHannukah, or an exaggerated "h"), but the phoneme was lost over time, though not completely. In "King's Spanish", you can just hear the "h" whenever someone pronounces "q".
Back to "ng", if you had done it as "gn" or even "nj" or "ny", THEN we have a true separate phoneme, which in Spanish is represented by "Ñ" (say "n" but with your teeth together).
Yes, you can borrow that letter
And you omitted the phoneme "ir" as in "fir". There are cases in which the English "r" becomes a very weak vowel (though never thrilled like it happens in Spanish). Maybe "ê" or "ë" could represent that.

And what about "wh" as in "when"?

Pfft. English isn't a Romantic language...

Meh, Even if the "26 lettered" English alphabet is inefficient. It's easier to type,write and read it.

*wants to be an animal instead *

I'm scared of change.

I'm scared of loose change. It keeps falling out of my pockets.

313131!
Lets just make it 32!! 2^5 Then change to base 32 math!! that would make programing more fun!!

...or maybe we could switch to D'ni. That uses lettering that only has one symbol for any given sound.

*would post something in D'ni here...but this board doesn't allow font changes*

this board doesn't allow font changes

Changing languages shouldn't require changing fonts...

*points to Unicode*

Forget English. We should all just switch to Chicken.

Chicken? Chicken chicken chicken, chicken!

Smurf!