Monday, October 23, 2006

Noo Fonetik Speling Rools

This is an eksperiment in developing a fonetik alfabet and ajusting speling rools akordeenlee.

It is generally known that the English language is a collage of many languages. This collection of languages reflects the migration of people and ideas to Europe and the United States from nations all over the world.
Many words that have been adopted into our everyday language have come from other languages.
This is not unusual, it happens to virtually every language on earth.
But it does make English one of the more difficult languages to learn because the spelling rules are so varied and have so many exceptions.

And spelling is where I have – and have always had – a problem.
There are two ways to simplify my problem.
One way is for me to just learn to spell better by more study.
The other is the change the alphabet and rules of spelling for the rest of the world so that spelling words is more consistent and intuitive for me.
So in an effort to simplify my spelling problems, I propose the following changes to the English alfabet and speling ruls.

The main problem is with the vowels – a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y.
Most of them have two sounds (uses) in words, and a few have three.
In some words the sound/pronunciation of two different vowels are the same.
In some words the sound/pronunciation of the same vowel is different.
You cannot tell how to pronounce each vowel by just looking at the word. There are a few problems with consonants, too.
But these are easily fixed.

This section was written in the current/old way to break you in gently.
Things wil change after this.

SUM EKZAMPELS OF ENGLISH SPELING INKONSISTENSEEZ

Heer ar sum eksampels of the mes our languaj is in.

“tub” is pronounsed ”tub” – short “u” saoond.
“Flood” is pronounsed “flud” - The same short “u” saoond.
Eksept there is no “u” in it.
Go figuer.
“Tube” is pronounsed “toob”.
The “e” is silent but changes the way we pronouns the “u”.
Take away the “l” in “flood” and you have “food”.
“Food” is pronounsed “fuud” - the long “u”: sound.
The same letters as “flood”, minus the “l”, but the dubel “o” bekomes the long “u” sound.
Go figeur sum mor.
Like “tool”, “school” and “fool”.
And “rule”.
Oops!
See?
But “Foot” is pronounsed “fut”. The short “u” sound again.
See wat I meen?

Luk at “on”.
Then luk at “one”.
Wee ad an “e” on the end and maak the “o” a soft “a” sound and ad an invisabel “w” on the front.
So “one” sounds the saam as “won”.

And ther ar minee mor, liik -
Seen vs scene, but not “sceen” or “ceen”.
Steel vs steal, but not “steeal”.
Or, “to” vs “too” vs “two”.

We all luak at thees werds and understand that the different forms of thees saoond-aliik werds meen somthing different. But the different sets of letters that saond the saam ar veree konfeoozing.
So, let’s fiks the speling ruls to maak them mor simpul and konsistant.

First – no werd shud end with an “e”.
The eksepshon to this is “the”.
How nice.
Wee start off with an eksepshon.

THE VOWELS.

A
The letter “a” has three sounds.
The long sound as in “able”.
A short sound as in “after”.
And a soft sound as in “auto”.
I propose the following chaanjes:
The long “a” sound wil be designated by the dubel letter.
This rul wil bee troo for all vowels.
Thus, “able” wil beekum “aabel”.
The short “a” sound wil bee the single letter.
This wil involve no chaanjes for many werds.
The soft “a” sound wil beekum a kombinaashon of the letter “a” with either “u” or “h”, as in “august”.
This kombinashon wil also take over the soft “o” sound. (see “O”)

E
The letter “e” has two sounds.
The long saoond as in “be”.
And the short sound as in “better”.
The long “e” sound wil bee designated by the dubel letter.
So “be” wil beekum “bee”.
“Team” wil beekum “teem”.
Most werds with the short “e” sound wil not chanj.

I
The letter “I” has two sounds.
The long sound, as in “time”.
And the short sound, as in “it”.
The long “I” sound wil bee designated by the dubel letter as “ii”, in keeping with my rool.
The dubel “I” sound will reeplaas the long “y” sound.
The long “y” sound wil bee reetiired.
Thus, “try” wil beekum “trii”.
“Tie” wil beekum “tii”
The short “I” sound and spelling wil not bee chaanjed.

O
The vowel “o” has three sounds.
The long sound as in “moon”
The short “o” sound as in “toe”
And the soft sound as in “lock”.
The long “o” wil bee designated by the dubel letter, as in “fool”, and “loon”.
Few chanjes heer.
The short “o” sound wil bee designated with the singel letter.
Thus, “toe” wil bee written “to”.
This maa taak som geting used too.
The soft “o” sound as in “lock” wil bee designated by the single letter “a” plus the letter ”h” or “u”.
Thus “lock” wil bee written “lahk”,
“Clock” – “klahk”.

U
The vowel “u” has two sounds.
The long sound, as in “tune”.
And the short sound as in “summer”.
Sintz the long “u” sound is the saam and the long “o” sound (“tune” vs “soon” vs “dune” vs “room”), the long “u” sound wil bee taken over bii the dubel “o”.
So “tune” wil beekum “toon”. (and “dune” > “doon”)
Konsistent with the new dubel leter rool.
“Use” would beekum “eeooz” or “eeoos”, depending on the eeoosaj.
The short “u” sound wil bee designaated bii the singel letter as is kurentlee dun.

Y
The sometimes vowel “y” has four sounds.
The long sound as in “type”.
The short sound as in “typical”.
The ending long “ee” sound as in “happy”.
And the leading “ee” sound as in “yes”.
This letter kud bee eeliminaated bekaus all of its sounds are dooplikats of egzisting leters.
The long sound is kovered bii the dubel “ii” sound.
Thus, “type” beekums “tiip”.
The short sound as in “typical” beekums “tipikal”.
And the leading and ending sounds are aktooalee the saam as the long “ee” sound.
Thus, “happy” beekums “hapee”, and “yes” beekums “eeas”

THE KONSONANTS

B, D, F, G, H, K, L, M, N, P, R, S, T, V, W, X, Z - few chanjez needed.

C
Eeooz “s” or “k” for most eeooses, there is no substitoot for “ch” as in “church”.
Thus, “can” beekums “kan”, and “center” beekums “senter”.

G
Wee keep only the hard “g” saoond, as in “go”.
The soft “g” saoond is the saam as “j”.
Thus, “garage” beekums “garaj”, “garbage” beekums “garbaj”.

J
Is the saam as the soft “g” sound, as in “jump”.
It wil reeplaas the soft “g” sound in al werds that hav it.

K
Beekums the hard sound for “C”.
Thus, “becomes” beekums “beekums”, “car” beekums “kar”, “cake” beekums “kaak”.

P
The “ph” kombinaashun for the saoond “f” is eliminated and replaasd with “f”.
Thus, “phantom” beekums “fantom”.
Silent first letter as in “psychology” wil beekum “sykalogee”.
No chanj to standard “P” sound, as in “pretty”, “pumpkin”, “puddel”.

Q
“Qu” kombinaashun is reeplaased with “kw”, so “quick” beekums “kwik”.
This letter kan bee eeliminated.

S
No substituut for “sh” sound.
This beekums the noo vershun of the soft “c” sound.
Thus, “cirrus” beekums “sirus”. (see “C”)
Long “s” as in “use” would beekum “yooz”.

X
Some reeplaasments with “ek”, so “xray” beekums “eksraa”.
“Xerox” beekums “Ziroks” or “Zeeroks”.

Z
Reeplaass “s” in some werds. So, “was” beekums “waz”.


LETTER KOMBINAASHUNS

The “ou” in many werds as “enough”, wil beekum “eenuf”.
The “qu” and “tion” in “equation”, wil beekum “eekwaazhun”.
The “sion” as in “erosion”, wil beekum “eeroshun”.
The “wh” kombinaashun as in “which” wil beekum “wich”.
The “ou” kombinaashum as in “should” wil beekum “shud”
“Could” wil beekum “kud”.
And “would” wil beekum “wud”.

Mor too kum...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hhmmm... that is y they say that english is the hardest language to learn... cause it dont make sense... and if you could make sense out of a good portion of it.... other languages should be easy to learn... like spanish french and japanese

Anonymous said...

Hello, in addition to the reasons you stated above, you may find that much of the pronunciation in english doesn't make sense because of your accent. ;)
For example, most of the inconsistencies you pointed out make perfect sense to me, but if I tried to pronounce the words with your examples, they didn't sound right, unless I used a heavy U.S. accent. ;)
As you probably know, there are already differences in the British and American versions of English, but it seems there needs to be more.
Interesting article though. And I hope you don't think i'm criticizing you or anything.
Cheers. :D
Sean

Anonymous said...

Btw, you've probably guessed I'm not from the U.S. I'm actually Aussie.
Cheers
Sean

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