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p^ho'nemIts) 'englIS

From:Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Date:Tuesday, June 22, 2004, 18:25
Over the years there have been many proposals for improving the spelling
of English by making it more phonetic, or at least phonemic.  The
objections to such schemes are many, and usually center on the loss of
etymological information and/or the impossibility of representing in one
system the many different ways English is pronounced.

So my suggestion is to go the other way - keep the spelling the same and
change how everyone pronounces English!  Simple!  Devise a new one-to-one
letter/sound pairing system for English and begin to use it.
For instance:

a=/a/  b=/b/ c=/ts)/ d=/d/ e=/e/ f=/f/ g=/g/
i=/I/ j=/dZ)/ k=/k/ l=/l/ m=/m/ n=/n/ o=/o/ p=/p/ q=/k^w/
r=/r\/ s=/s/ t=/t/ u=/u/ v=/v/ w=/w/ x=/x/ y=/i/ z=/z/

ch=/tS)/ gh=/G/ kh=/k^h/ ph=/p^h/ sh=/S/ th=/D/ wh=/W/ zh=/Z/

h outside of the above digraphs = /h/

Tonic stress always on the penult.

Which would make my first sentence sound something like this:

'o.ver\ De i'e.ar\s 'De.re 'ha.ve 'be.en 'ma.ni pr\o'po.sals for\
Im'pro.vIng De 'spel.lIng of 'en.glIS 'mo.re p^ho'ne.tIts) or at 'le.ast
p^ho'ne.mIts)

Whatcha think? :)

Reply

Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>