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
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.”
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”?
One of the problems I see with writing English as it’s pronounced is that we all pronounce it differently, even within a country, to say nothing of worldwide.
The "R"s or lack thereof in something written by someone from Massachusetts, say, would definitely trip most people up.
IIRC, English spelling reflects the pronunciation of whatever region of England was dominant around the late Middle Ages, further screwed up by scholars who felt it should be more like Latin.
The real problem is not so much that different dialects use different sounds for the letters, but that the spelling is hopelessly inconsistent.
