"Re-Designing" or coming up with your own "English"...

[mjr]

Here's an interesting one...

My wife and I were talking the other day about English. And we were wondering if we were to "re-design" English, how would we do it?

Grammar aside, we pondered if we (individually) should go with a more phonetically based language, or more brevity of alphabet (i.e. eliminate certain letters, and letter combinations, changing spelling in some cases).

So phonetically, the word "phonics" would basically be "foniks". And book could possibly be "buk", and shoe could be "shu".

We discussed it, but we left out the "happy medium" of doing both, but we realized in certain circumstances that we'd have to change spelling.

For instance, if you went with brevity of alphabet, one letter you could eliminate would be C, because the "hard" C sounds like K, and the softer C sounds like S. You could possibly eliminate X as well, since it has that "cks" sound.

So what do you think? Which way would you go? More phonetic, or brevity?

I did mention to her that if we're re-designing, we could also take the 1984 approach and use "un" for the "negative" of a word (i.e. good and ungood vs good and bad).

But I suppose a "brevity of alphabet" would, in a way, cause some words to be spelled phonetically, so I guess it's kind of a hybrid.

But the bigger discussion we were having was more about the mechanics of it.

[EricKei]

Well, it's not like English doesn't need the help as it is. We live in a world where one could argue that "ghoti" and "fish" sound exactly the same.

I'd definitely drop the C in favor of K/S (for the appropriate sounds), myself, even if the language was largely unchanged otherwise. Yes, I realize that would make my handle "Erikei", but plenty of people online call me either that or "Erik" anyway, so it wouldn't change much for me. Note that we'd still need the letter C for "ch" et al, until wee kan kum up wiþ sumþing tuu yuuz in its playss.

As for the idea of going phonetic -- I wouldn't mind that too much, just as long as we could get everybody to *agree* on which characters represented which sounds (after all, vowels in particular can vary wildly from word to word and dialect to dialect).

[Ironclad Alibi]

This has been addressed before. Consider Meihem In Ce Klasrum, a 1946 story by Dolton Edwards.

[Kittish]

You beat me to it, Ironclad Alibi. I have an old Analog magazine that has the story printed in it.

[KuariKaydrith]

Russians managed to do it so it is possible that the English language can have the same thing.

[Ironclad Alibi]

You beat me to it, Ironclad Alibi. I have an old Analog magazine that has the story printed in it.

What a coincidence. I also have an old Analog magazine. Mine is January 1965 and has part 1 of the Prophet of Dune by Frank Herbert.

[csquared]

Don't bother. We should all just learn Esperanto.

[mjr]

Don't bother. We should all just learn Esperanto.

Wasn't that a song??

[Kittish]

What a coincidence. I also have an old Analog magazine. Mine is January 1965 and has part 1 of the Prophet of Dune by Frank Herbert.

Mine isn't nearly nearly that old. It's Analog's Anthology #9, Winter 1984. From Mind to Mind, Tales of Communication. Not quite actually a regular magazine issue, but not quite a regular paperback book, either.

[csquared]

Wasn't that a song??

I think that you are proving my point.

[wolfie]

Don't bother. We should all just learn Esperanto.

Do you want to talk to the Aggressors in their own language?