My feeling is that English (and how it is written) is part language, part art form, and part puzzle. It’s there for communication, but the quirks are all part of its history and can be enjoyed for itself. And trying to get it correct can be a thought of as an enjoyable game. I wouldn’t change it for anything.
It’s consistent within groups. My mum learned English spelling (moving from Dutch) at age 7 by looking for patterns and then remembering which pattern group different words belonged to. Obviously she wouldn’t have explained it that way at age 7, but using simpler vocabulary, that’s how she explained it to me when I was 6.
By the time she was 10 she was winning spelling bees – pretty good considering she still had an accent.
When I studied History of Language in university, I discovered her pattern groups matched closely to major historical shifts in English. So the evidence is there if you look for it.
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You can determine how to pronounce and spell words that are tough through thorough thought,
though.
*cough*
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I bough to your superior kuhnowledge.
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I took Spanish in high school. The first day our teacher taught us the sounds of the letters, then the second or third day gave us a spelling bee. Most of the class got over 90%. Spelling bees simply don’t exist in many languages, because spelling is self-evident. English spelling has some rules, but much of it is just memory work.
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Consonants:
I mostly followed Gothic consonants, transliterated into Roman letters. I used single b for the sound in venting and double bb for the sound in blaming. Gothic usually uses single b, with value depending on position, but uses double bb in loanwords like sabbato (saturday). Gothic like Greek uses double gg for the final sound in venting.
Vowels:
I couldn’t do the same because English has more vowels. I tried to make a more consistent system, using single letters for short vowels and double letters for long ones:
a for TRAP, BATH, START
ai for PRICE
e for DRESS
ee for FACE, SQUARE
i for KIT
ii for FLEECE, NEAR
o for LOT, CLOTH, PALM
oo for GOAT, NORTH, FORCE
oi for CHOICE
u for STRUT, NURSE
uu for GOOSE
jii for CURE in CURE
uuwur for CURE in TOUR
Not figured out:
FOOT
MOUTH
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Hmm. Maybe it’s because of regional accents, but I would not have chosen those for the vowels.
I would have chosen:
a for TRAP, BATH, START
ii for PRICE
e for DRESS
aa for FACE, SQUARE
i for KIT
ee for FLEECE, NEAR
o for LOT, CLOTH, PALM
oo for GOAT, NORTH, FORCE
ooi for CHOICE
uu for GOOSE
yuu for U in CURE
uuw for OU in TOUR
yuuw for EWE in EWER
aw for MOUTH
u for FOOT
I’m not sure what you mean by this:
u for STRUT, NURSE
Those 'U’s are pronounced quite differently in the accent I use; the first is pronounced like the word “uh” (plug, tub, gum, up), and the second is a schwa (first, berm, fur).
The schwa being mostly vowel independent, I’d give it to y:
y for NURSE, FIRST, BERM, WYRM
(Yes, I know that’s inconsistent with the orthography I previously used; I was trying to mimic what I already saw).
The other is difficult, because it’s so close to being an ‘n’; I’d probably just use “uh.”
uh for STRUT, CLUB, UP
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I think this conversation needs to be split off into its’ own thread, please.
@ChickieD; If you wouldn’t mind?
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Yes. When I get back to office I’ll take care of this.
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Thanks, @ChickieD. It would probably be good if you went back a bit farther, though. Maybe to this:
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If wii adoptid ee bbetr orþografii, wii wuld hab les ub þiiz probblemz. Dzjust seejigg.
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This looks vaguely Dutch to me.
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Dutch by someone with a very bad cold.
(I can’t parse “dzjust seejigg” at all.)
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Ai wuz dzjust speligg “just saying” az ai see it.
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Oh.
Now I’m not sure sure what the rest of that latest sentence was.
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“If we adopted a better orthography, we would have less of these problems. Just saying.”
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Maybe with Brexit, English speakers will get back the thorn (þ), stolen from us by the vile cabal of European type manufacturers! Although the “þ” in “þiiz” should really be an “ð” (eth).
@MarjaE, what orthography are you using? How do you get an “ng” sound from the double g in “seejigg”?
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Don’t blaam mii. Y wuz dzjust tranzgrybigg wat wuz ritn.
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