How to Make English a Better Language

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In this thread, we talk about why the English language sucks, and how it could be made better.

Spelling: Do we need to change the spellings of words? Some of them are pretty odd.

Word Order: Is subject-verb-object ideal or would something else be better?

Alphabet: Do we need more letters? Less letters? Perhaps we should bring back some old letters like Yogh and Thorn. Alternatively, we could drop some redundant letters like X and C. … or perhaps we don't even need an alphabet. Perhaps an Abjad or a Syllabary would be preferable.

Indefinite Articles: Do we need them? Maybe the world would be a better place if we all spoke like The Hulk.

Plurals: Is the English plural system too confusing or is it okay?

Click Consonants: I wish these existed in English. They're cool.

Thoughts?

In the book, "1984" the point was made that less words = less specific thoughts = easily to control people's thinking.

More specific words like "awful", "nasty", "rotten" can be replaced with a less specific word like "un-good".

The English system is SVO. "Subject verb object": "girl kicks the ball". In contrast some languages like Irish are VSO( kick, girl, ball), or in some other order.

Ours is not only perfectly fine it seems to be the "default setting" for humans to talk about the thing, and then the action, and then object of the action. African slaves from tribes all over Africa with different languages with different word orders were thrown together on slave ships, but when they formed a pidgin language it would always be SVO.

Spelling could be streamlined.

The letter C? Yes, its traditional uses can be replaced by either K, or by S. But the letter C can be saved and repurposed to represent the "ch" sound. Don't know what to do with X though.

Pluralization is already rather easy. Just add s to things. Its just those pesky words that have been in the language since AngloSaxon times that are the exception:children, oxen, bretheren.

I could get behind changing the spelling of quite a few words.

It's hard enough trying to get people to use the Oxford comma.

I think all that needs to be done for English to make sense is for things to be spelled phonetically, for all spelling to be consistent and to axe off redundant letters/letter combinations, with maybe a few added, and for plurals to be consistent. The letter "c" for example is pointless as there is a perfectly good "k" for hard sounds and a perferctly good "s" for soft sounds. The letter "g" should only be used in its hard capacity as there is a perfectly good "j" for soft "g" sounds. Letter combinations to make sounds that we already have letters for should be thrown out. It makes zero sense to use "ph" to make a sound that "f" can do just fine. Perhaps there could be an actual letter for "ch" sounds, as well as one for "sh" sounds and "th" sounds.

Words should always be spelled as they sound. Pronunciation should never be an issue. Perhaps the biggest barrier to cleaning up the English language however is the number of same sounding words, although context could help in that regard. Plurals in English are just ret*d. All plurals should be nouns with "s" or "es" added on the end, with the latter only being used for words that end in "s". Seriously, plurals should be just as simple as nominalizers.

If all of the above changes were made, English would make sense. As it stands, it simply does not.

To simplify the english language I would make the following changes

1. Remove all tenses
2. Replace "Yes" with "Aaah"
3. Put I before I including after C
4. Make the plural of sheep, sheeps
5. Remove all of the French words

If you change the spellings and interesting pronunciations, you lose the history and beauty of the language. You lose the relationships with other languages and other cultures. I would find it sad to change it in this way.

(and BTW, it should be fewer words, not less words.)

I'm starting to think of this thread as sort of a jocular thread......

You might be on to something Kraftie

Y U þink?