Ok English, it's time for a reform. (consonants)
- Admin
- Nov 8, 2015
- 8 min read
It's time that we sit down with the English language and have a LONG, OVERDUE chat. Whether we like it or not, we need to edit somethings about our language that make absolutely zero sense. So let's begin shall we?
Okay, it's time that we take out some letters out of our alphabet. Letters that serve no clear purpose other than nuance, or style, don't deserve any place in our alphabet. They only make spelling more confusing for people learning the English language.
Eliminate the letter "Q"
The letter Q is the 17th letter of the English alphabet. It's origins lie within the fertile crescent with the Egyptian hieroglyph wj as well as the Phonecian qoph. This later gave way to the Etruscan q and Greek qoppa.
This is where we get to the letter Q's usage! The Latin alphabet's letter Q derived from the Greek letter Koppa (Ϙ), which at the time of it's creation was used to represent that sounds /kʷ/ and /kʷʰ/. Later, these sounds were shifted to/p/ and /pʰ/, and the letter Phi (Φ) came into popular use. Thus Koppa was only used to represent a number from this point forth, and it slowly fell out of use.
In the early years of the letter Q, Latin used this letter (along with C and K) to represent the sounds /k/ and /g/. Q was the letter used before a rounded vowel, such as 'eqo' insted of 'ego'. {K was used before /a/ sounds and C was used elsewhere. Once "G", a variant of "C", was created, all three letters dropped in use.} This shift is partially responsible for English's seldom use of Q for anything other than the digraph /kw/.
In the English language, Q is the second least common letter, only being used in 0.09% of words. There are only three words native to the English language that contain a "Q" that's not followed by a "u".
~ qwerty: /ˈkwɜrti/ - the standard English keyboard layout
~ tranq: /træŋk/ - a slang term for traquiliser
~ qiana:/kiˈɑːnə/ - a type of nylon fibre
Other popular words in English that contain a "Q" not followed by a "u" are foreign words that we have adopted. These include words like "sheqel", "Iraq", "niqab" and "compaq".
Proposal:
Eliminate the letter "Q" from the English alphabet. It would still be used for foreign words, much like "ß" is retained in words of German origin and "ã" is retained in words of Portuguese origin. We would simply cease to use it in words that are native to English.
Examplse:
"queen" becomes "kueen"
"quiz" becomes "kuiz"
So you may be asking, why did you change the spelling of "queen" to "kueen" instead of "kween"?
Well...
Eliminate the letter "W"
So... yeah. We need to eliminate this one too. Let's start at the beginning.
W is the 23rd letter of the English alphabet. It's origin story is a bit complex. Ultimately it comes from two sources. It derives it's sound partially from the runic Wynn (Ƿ), and was introduced during the Norman conquest. It's sound can also be traced back to the Gothics, who used the a letter based off of Greek Y to represent /w/.
W originally was created when scribes combined two V's together to show that the sounds were to follow each other closely to produces a /w/ sound. At the time, the letter's V and W were somewhat interchangeable. Therefore VVitches/vvitches and UUitches/uuitches became Witches/witches. This is also partially why "W" is a semivowel.
Proposal:
Eliminate the letter "W" from the English alphabet. Much like "Q", it would remain in foreign words, but shouldn't be used in native English words. In most cases, W would be replaced by a singular U, as it produces an almost identical sound (Don't believe me? Sound it out). Times were W is a consonant and is used after a vowel (cow or claw) would also utilise a singular U. This is already prevelent in words like "ouch", "foul", "mouth" and "aubergine".
Examples:
"world" becomes "uorld"
"coward" becomes "couard"
Eliminate the letter "Y"
Yup, the letter "Y" has to go. Quite honestly, it's purpose has a demise similar to that of W.
Y is the 25th letter in the English alphabet and it's actually there for a reason! When the Latin alphabet adopted the letter "Y" from the Greek alphabet, they saw it as simply another form of the letter "I" that was inferior to their own. Because of this, they named it "I Greca" or "Greek I" and tacked it onto the end of their own alphabet. Even at it's beginning, Y was seen as another form of I that was only necessary for spelling foreign words. This is similar to the situation with Y now. Any case where Y comes before a vowel, it could be replaced by I (iellow - sound it out). This is similar to it's placement at the end of words (similarly - similarli). Therefore, Y is not a neccesity in the English language. It's actually only used in 1.97% of our words!
Proposal:
Eliminate the letter Y except in foreign spellings and replace it with "I".
Examples:
"yell" becomes "iell"
"carry" becomes "carri"
Eliminate the letter "X"
Two more to go. Letter X is perhaps one of the most obviously useless letters in the English language. It's only used in 0.15% of all English words and its five sounds (/ks/, /gz/, /kʃ/, /gʒ/, and /z/) can all be replaced by alternate spellings.
X is the 24th letter of the English alphabet. It was derived from the Greek Chi (X) and was originally used to make the sound /kʰ/ until western parts of Greece (Arcadia) began to use it as as a digraph for ΧΣ (ks). This explains the Latin usage of X for the /ks/ sound. However, this usage doesn't make sense. Why would you use one letter to make a sound that two other pre-existing letters can logically produce? (remember that word "logically" for later).
Proposal:
Eliminate X in all English spellings except words with foreign origins.
Example:
"example" becomes "eksample"
"excellent" becomes "egzsellent"
Wait. Why "egzsellent" instead of "egzcellent"?
Does this mean...
Yes. It means exactly that.
Eliminate the letter "C"
Last elimination, I promise. Hopefully, this deletion makes as much sense as the deletion of the letter X. The letter C is only used to make the /s/ sound and the /k/ sound, depending on the vowel that it precedes. Why then do we have it?
The letter C actually used to be important. Upon its introduction into the English language, C was only used for the /k/ sound. This is why later, when the letter "G" was derived from C, it was given the softer version of the /k/ sound, /g/. Later, the letter C was given the sound /ts/. It maintained this sound until the 13th century, when the sound /ts/ de-afficated to /s/. However, the letter C has never had it's own individual sound in the English language. So why do we keep it? Easy answer, we shouldn't.
Proposal:
If we can replace C with S and K, we should do it.
Examples:
"cat" becomes "kat"
"cellar" becomes "sellar"
Ok so we don't have any more eliminations to make, but we do have some changes (and additions) to make.
Add letters for "th", "dh", "sh'", and "ch"
Remember when I said to remember the word "logical" when I said, "Why would you use one letter to make a sound that two other pre-existing letters can logically produce" ? Well here are the exceptions. It's not logical to use these letters to make these sounds. Not anymore at least. Why would adding an /s/ to and /h/ produce a /ʃ/ sound? I mean seriously, sound it out. It doesn't make sense! Neither does "ch" which is really just /t/ combined with /ʃ/!
The most common reason people object to adding new letters is that we'd have to create new, unfamiliar letters. This is actually false. The extended Latin alphabet already has a letter to represent all of these digraphs!
- th = Þþ (the letter thorn used to be in the English alphabet, but was dropped. It's still used in Icelandic.)
- dh = Ðð (the letter eth also used to be in the English alphabet but was dropped. It is also stilled used in Icelandic.)
- sh = Ʃʃ (the letter esh is a letter in the extended Latin alphabet that was never added to English. Why? Who knows.
- ch = tʃ (there's no reason that ch should have it's own letter, but it makes even less sense that it should be created by combining C and H. Therefore,
combining T and SH makes more sense, since these are the sounds that
are actually combined to created the sound.)
All of these letters have pre-existing cursive forms, thus there's hardly a reason not to include them. It wouldn't be difficult.
Examples:
"three" becomes "þree"
"father" becomes "faðer"
"ship" becomes "ʃip"
"church" becomes "tʃurtʃ"
Add schwa into the alphabet
Schwa is actually the most common vowel sound in the English language! However, we never added its letter into our alphabet! Schwa is used for the "uh" sound when vowels are often flattened, or when a vowel is silent. This is an easy fix! Just add it to our alphabet!
Examples:
"about" becomes "əbout"
"separate" becomes "sepərate"
"camera" becomes" "caməra"
"elaborate" becomes "elabərate"
Change "J" from a /dʒ/ sound to simply a /ʒ/ sound, and "G" should always make the hard "G" sound
As of current, J is one of the letters that carries two sounds in one letter. It's really a digraph of /d/ followed by /ʒ/ or "zh" (as in vision).
So we have two options.
1.) We can follow suit of the French and change "J" to a /ʒ/ sound, as in vision. This means we could keep the letter, and use "dj" to create the English "juh" sound. This means "vision" would be spelled "vijion" and "just" would be spelled "djust".
2.) We can eliminate the J entirely and subsitute it for "ʒ" which is the true Latin letter for "zh". This means "vision" would be "viʒion" and "just" would be "dʒust".
Also, the letter G was created to make the soft version of /k/, /g/. Therefore, it shouldn't make the /dʒ/. This means "George" needs to become "Dheordje" or "Dʒeordʒe". It may look silly, or strange, but I assure you that it makes more phonetic sense.
Conclusion:
So if we sum up all of our changes, we end with this alphabet:
A B D Ð E F G H I (J/Ʒ) K L M N O P R S Σ T Þ U V Ə Z
See? We're back to 24 or 25 letters! (depending on which option you choose for J)
That's almost zero change to the length of our alphabet.
If we can make English an easier language to learn, why wouldn't we? Check this out!
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Ðe kuik broun foks djəmps over ðe lazi dog.
You can still understand the sentence! It wouldn't be too hard to adjust!
Language is all about changing and developing over time. It's about time to take a step in the right direction and encourage an evolution of the English language.
Whatdya say English? Ready for the beginning of your makeover?
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C6%8F
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch_(digraph)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esh_(letter)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_palato-alveolar_sibilant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W
http://www.math.cornell.edu/~mec/2003-2004/cryptography/subs/frequencies.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q
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