Should English language be spelt phonetically?

Question

Since English is now basically the global language and the key language of trade and commerce- should we think about revising many spellings to enable people to pronounce words properly.

I do not mean like using phonetic symbols to duplicate accents directy; I mean like:

knife= naife
caught= kort
said= sed
henceforth= henssforth
Newcastle= Nyucarssel
London= Lunden
Mahoney= Maonee/Marnee
tube= tyoob
cook= kook
scissors= sizzors

It would rely less on obsolete French based spellings and resemble more like German or Dutch?
Maybe incorporate umlauts?
what do you think?

Oops- my Newcastle should be spelt Nyukarssel.

Answer 1

nice idea, but different accents would confuse people.
in some places there would still be misspellings.

caught = kot
tube = toob

Answer 2

There isn't a problem with English as it is. 1) "Phonetic" spelling. First of all, which dialect are you going to use as the model? You can only have ONE dialect as the standard for a "phonetic" spelling system. So all the other people who speak English natively are out of luck. Second, you will lose contact with the millions of pages of English that has been written over the last 10 centuries by changing the spelling. Children would have to learn to read TWO different languages in order to read current materials and literature from the past. That's impractical. Third, the sounds of every language are constantly changing. Once a couple of generations pass, the "phonetic" spelling system is no longer phonetic. You either have to reform the system every two or three generations or have a "phonetic" system that ceases to be phonetic. 2) English grammar is constantly changing. That's just the nature of language. You can eliminate all the exceptions and inconsistencies of language today and they will be replaced by new exceptions and inconsistencies within two or three generations. English is no more and no less "inconsistent" and "illogical" than any other language. As languages change over time, these things enter the language. That's just the nature of language change. Inconsistencies and irregularies are just the leftovers of past regular grammar. Also, there are almost an infinite variety of wonderful things to be found in the world's languages, but they do not always work well together. And, finally, languages MUST operate with a certain amount of redundancy. Communication would grind to a halt without redundancy.

Answer 3

I do understand that English is a hellish language for people to learn to write and read, because of the idiosyncratic spellings (unlike Welsh, for example, which is phonetic). However, there are a number of difficulties with your proposal. Let's just take that Newcastle example. The way you have chosen to spell it is the way someone from southern England would pronounce it, not someone from Newcastle itself (no 'r', it would be a short vowel). Simliarly, your rendering of tube as 'tyoob' is a British pronunciation - Americans would say 'toob'. So accent is the first stumbling block. The second one is that this would make it well-nigh impossible for people to read anything written in the past - it would be hard enough to read yesterday's newspaper, let alone Shakespeare. If one was to change all the Shakespeare etc into the new form, an awful lot would be lost (as it tends to be in any translation).

I suspect there are more reasons I haven't yet thought of, but I will own up to another reason, for me - an attachment to these weird and wonderful spellings that can tell us so much about the history of the language.

Answer 4

Phonemically maybe, but to spell it phonetically would be highly impractical. If you're not sure of the difference, look it up!

This kind of thing has been proposed many times before, but there are big problems. First, what accent would the spellings be based on? For a Scottish person, for example, "Nyucarssel" looks as if it has an /r/ in the middle of it. Second, one advantage of not spelling words phonemically is that the connections between words are clearer. For example, would you spell "divine" as "divain"? If so, how would you spell "divinity"?

I think the first argument is the most compelling, however. There's no real way to overcome it.

I also have to admit that your system seems very idiosyncratic. Why naife and not naif? Why not hensforth?

Edit: heavy84 is, I'm afraid talking rubbish. English is not so widely spoken owing to any relative easiness. Not all learners would agree on that point on any case. Its popularity has everything to do with the power, historical and present, of the countries whose inhabitants speak it.

Answer 5

the worst idea ever... let me explain why.

they actually tried this here in the 1980ies (Netherlands.) the official commision that changes spelling every so other years. thought it would be easier for people to spell words if they are spelled phonetically.

a series of new rules came up:
you could use a C for a K and vica versa, same for S and C. this caused words like verticaal, to be written as vertikaal.

a tussen n for words like zonnenbank and koninginnendag instead of the previous zonnebank and koninginnedag.

ah wel, many rules were introduced to make spelling easier. the fact was however, that it didnt make spelling easier. as dutch has a great variation in prenounciation in different areas. as english does aswell. and this is where the problem arose. people from different areas wrote the same words, differently phoneticaly. making the language even harder to understand.

can you imagine, an irish coleworker phonetically spelling an entire letter and mailing it to a londener? the londener wouldnt be able to read a signle word save perhaps the word I.

to illustrate, some fo the words written phonetically as I prenounce them:
Sizzers
kuk
naif
sad
niewkassel
toob
londen

i still come across words like produkt and vertikaal occasionaly, in short, theyre still picking up the pieces when it comes to that spelling change.

Answer 6

The English language is a salad and often replicates the phonetic inadequacies of the languages from which she stole the words.
I find German much more phonetic than English but Germans will moan about (to me) minor points.
Some conservatives say that it's good the the way it is, so we know what is meant by 'sew' 'sow' or 'so' when we read.
Yet when we hear the word, from context, it's all clear.
I think that English should be phonetic and as it is now the 'lingua franca' of international communication it should be written as it's pronounced.
Forget those stupid arguments about dialects, this is the written word.
Besides it'll make it easier for all those 'foriners' who learn our language as most of us never learn another.

BTW: I think Bex's comments are a bit rich when she can't even capitalise.

Answer 7

Fact:

-English is the international language because is easier to learn
-Because unlike others is dynamic. The English language has been created by the speakers and not by rules. For example in Spanish a word is official just if it exists in the Spanish's Real Academy; hence it's not a dynamic language.
-Its international because although it grows with the speakers the writing is independent of the accent. These problems may be seeing in differences between writing Spanish from Argentina and from Spain.
-Phonetically writing just complicates more things, for example, in Spanish there are "apostrophes" - they don't indicate possession but the accent- i.e. the problem with Argentinean writing. So, in Spanish, trying to keep things more standard (so everybody whose speaks Spanish can understand each other) this "accents" were invented. Hence, "como" is different to "cómo" or "solo" (alone) is different to “sólo" (just); however the pronunciation is exactly the same for both words in many countries but in Spain and Colombia (for this case), thus is necessary the introduction of many rules that makes the language complicated and uncomfortable.

I have a question if the English is so complicated how come is the most spoken language in the world (obviously taken in consideration not just as first language!! in which case is Standard Mandarin) and probably the one that more people knows how to read and write?

Answer 8

Actually there used to be this kind of movement back in the 18th century.
Today, people in the United States spell certain words differently from people in Britain because of Webster's original dictionary. For example, in Britain, words like center end in 're'. In the United States, these words end in 'er'. Webster did not go as far in revising spelling as his friend Benjamin Franklin wanted him to. Franklin wanted to drop all silent letters from words. The word 'wrong' would have been spelled r-o-n-g, and the word 'knife' would have been spelled n-i-f.

BTW, why did you put 'r' in caught and Newcastle?
Even Americans wouldn't pronounce the word rhotic!
They should be 'kot' and 'nyukasel' or whatever.

Answer 9

No. i found your spellings almost impossible to follow. I curse Dr Johnston from time to time but at least we have a clue of the roots from which our language as grown from. I think your idea may well be good in theory but in the long term I thing the practise will cause more problems in the long term than it is worth.
Forget texting that is something used to shorten words

Answer 10

no way, i dont agree!
i love the english language and dont think it should be spelt phonetically. it looks awful, like a four year olds spelling. I know theres not really anything wrong with that am i am being a tad narrow minded but i dont see why it should be changed to look like lazy text speak when its perfectly fine as it is, if people want to learn it it should be learnt properly! why should many many years of development be ruined and turned into slob, wheres the fun !? ;-)

Answer 11

As you have show with you Nyucarssel Nyukarssel - Maonee marnee there are too many variants of phonetics to make it practical.