hypothetically, let’s say you were tasked with simplifying the English language. how would you go about doing that, and why?
to start with an easy one, the first thing I would do is eliminate silent letters from all words and make it so no letters share sounds. for example, example would become exampel. then, because x would no longer be around or at least wouldn’t have that sound, ekzampel. I would also consider eliminating mulit-letter sounds like ch, and replacing them with single characters (probably the ones that got removed).
Remove the letter “c”.
space, face, place etc. replace with “s” as it makes the “s” sound
score, scum etc. replace with “k” as it makes the “k” sound
Also what is the point of the letter “q” if it’s only followed by “u”, make the letter “q” mean “qu” to save space.
replace “ph” with “f”.
raplace instances or “y” where it makes the same sound as “i” with “i”.
Ie. the famous Bakunin quote: “In antiquity slaves were, in all honesty called slaves. In the middle ages, they took the name of serfs. Nowadays they are called wage earners.” ~ Mikhail Bakunin
would become “In antiqiti slaves were, in all honesti, kalled slaves. In the middle ages, they took the name of serfs. Nowadays they are kalled wage earners.”
I wish to direct you to the shavian alphabet: https://shavian.info/
looks cool
How would you differentiate face and phase?
fase and faze. of course faze is already a word, so we’d have to come up with something for that too. I think it’d be fine to have it phase and faze spelt the same since they already sound the same. at least then it would be easier to spell correctly.
I’d keep c around for the ch sound, like Italian (I think they do that, anyway)
Or remove the letter “c” as it is currently used and replace instances of “ch” with “c”.
that’s what I was thinking too towards the end but forgot to mention it specifically. I think that’s the best thing to do with the unnecessary letters as it reduces the need for letter combinations.