...but if you see a ".co.in" version of the same, you know who's behind it.
For every M.A. in English literature who thinks I am an idiot if I advocate phonetic spelling, I know 100 children who think "English" is stupid language if "So" , "To" and "Go" don’t rime.
Aim.
The reform of English spelling for the benefit of learners and users everywhere.
Objectives.
A. To publicize the unnecessary difficulties of English spelling and the benefits that its simplification would bring.
B. To raise awareness of the alphabetic principle, its corruption during the long history of written English, and its more rational application in other languages.
C. To promote research and debate on ways of reforming English spelling, and to prepare a graded set of proposals for relating word-forms more predictably to speech-sounds.
D. To help co-ordinate proposals for English spelling reform across both English-speaking and non-English-speaking countries.
E. To persuade the public, opinion-formers, policy-makers and relevant agencies of the need for and practical possibilities of reforming English spelling.
Six Axioms on English Spelling.
1. The letters of the alphabet were designed to represent speech sounds; that is the alphabetic principle.
2. The alphabetic principle makes literacy easy, allowing the reader to pronounce words from their spelling, and the writer to spell them from their sounds.
3. As pronunciation changes through the ages, the alphabetic principle tends to be corrupted; the spelling of words then needs to be adapted to show the new sounds.
4. Unlike other languages, English has not systematically modernized its spelling over the past 1,000 years, and today it only haphazardly observes the alphabetic principle.
5. Neglect of the alphabetic principle now makes literacy unnecessarily difficult in English throughout the world, and learning, education and communication all suffer.
6. Procedures are needed to manage improvements to English spelling as a world communication system."
1 comment:
don't you think this could complicate spellings more if you were to spell them phonetically.
for example a word like walleyed would have to be written as Wawleyed - right? or do you think it might still make life simpler??
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