Such fix-ups have been proposed repeatedly and consistently overcome by momentum. We seem more interested in coining new words than in making sense of the existing ones!
I know. I posted the link because as a Finn I find it intensely funny.
Here*s a poem about the current unreformed spelling:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Chaos
2 Likes
Sort of like Peyton place, a never ending story, grrrrrrā¦
As far as I know there are only two wholly phonetic languages in use today.
Turkish - which adopted a version of our western alphabet in the late 1920s, and therefore could rationalize spelling and pronunciation, however, it means using a non-standard accented-font, because trying to get all of the sounds from the basic 26 letters is not possible.
They donāt use Q or W or X, but add in 6 extra letters with accents etc to give 29 plus using additional circumflexes on some vowels too !
So nothing is simpleā¦
Then thereās the invented Esperanto, which has a much simplified vocabulary and a set of consistent rulesā¦
They half the number of words by simply using āoppositeā rules with a āmalā prefix, somewhat like ENās āunā - so good / bad becomes bona / malbona etcā¦
But no one speaks it as a first languageā¦
It depends on how strict rules you apply. I donāt know Turkish, but I would guess that after almost a century even that has evolved and that all anomalies were not accounted for in the first place.
I would slacken the rules a bit and add, for instance, classical Latin, Finnish and Estonian to the list. Latinās perhaps only nonphonetical feature is the long vowels (in practice you will have to learn them by heart) and in Finnish the long vowels and consonants that are spelled by doubling them are not actually as long as that.
Anssi
Italian is also quite logical in its spelling / pronunciation - if not its grammar - sono = I am & they are !
Once you get your head around its illogical rules [at least from an EN perspective] e.g. the way C is a K or a CH depending on its surrounding consonants, and with it an similar consonants to avoid confusion the H is added to force pronunciation - spaghettli = spaGetti NOT spaJettiā¦
1 Like
What a great idea! All silent letters should be culled. That way all French words will be only half as long 
Schmucks who say med-cine instead of medicine will know they are wrong. Americans will realize there is an l in solder. Or will it be spelt sawder? 
In regards to the sounds of the alphabets and words, I found both Spanish and Italian logical. Although, there is slight accent changes depending on the region for Spanish.
On the Eastern side, I found Japanese the most straight forward, without much exceptions.
This is me, not twitching. Honest.
Interesting article by the BBC todayā¦
Native English Speakers are the Worldās Worst Communicators ā BBC.com
3 Likes
I didnāt understand that articleā¦
And this is where things go wrong: (quote from the article) āā¦who did not to reveal the tricky word because ā¦ā He/she, writing the article, even skips words.