How would you change the English language?

[Globex]

If you could change the English language, what modifications would you make? Would you add grammatical genders? Would you change verbs so that they must be conjugated to fit the subject (like in Spanish, French, Italian, etc.). Would you add tones to distinguish between words that sound the same? Would you want to make it simpler or more complex?

Some of the changes I would make:

-Change the spelling system to make it phonetic
-Add grammatical genders for people and animals (e.g. two separate words for "male cousin" and "female cousin")

 

[Mirc]

Believe me or not, those two things were the first things that came into my mind.

I would also get rid of a few rules that I find unnecessary and the create problems for most non-native speakers (the only one I can think of right now is "no 'would' after 'if'", but there are much more out there).

 

[Bill3000]

Grammatical gender would be best getting rid of, not added.

 

[Winner]

If you could change the English language, what modifications would you make? Would you add grammatical genders? Would you change verbs so that they must be conjugated to fit the subject (like in Spanish, French, Italian, etc.). Would you add tones to distinguish between words that sound the same? Would you want to make it simpler or more complex?

Some of the changes I would make:

-Change the spelling system to make it phonetic

I don't know, it would look weird. But it certainly makes it easier to us.

-Add grammatical genders for people and animals (e.g. two separate words for "male cousin" and "female cousin")

Yes, please. And you could also add something to women's surnames (like -ova in most Slavic languagues) to avoid awkward moments

My suggestions:

- get rid of that multitude of tenses. Use only three tenses, one for the present, one for the past and one for the future. If it's enough in my language, I don't see a reason why it shouldn't be enough in other languages too.
- reduce the number of irregular verbs
- start using commas properly

 

[Sharwood]

Believe me or not, those two things were the first things that came into my mind.

I would also get rid of a few rules that I find unnecessary and the create problems for most non-native speakers (the only one I can think of right now is "no 'would' after 'if'", but there are much more out there).

I'm not a linguist, but those are among the same things I thought of. Personally though, I think maybe we should just replace all the damn thing with Esperanto and be done with it.

 

[Princeps]

I think all linguists should be hit in the head with hammers, (with the possible exception of Noam Chomsky, of course).

 

[Lillefix]

Let's hope we don't end up with Newspeak.

 

[Winner]

Let's hope we don't end up with Newspeak.

Room 101...

 

[Agent Valentine]

I don't think English should be made phonetic. Doing so would make the language lose a lot of its character.

 

[Tee Kay]

-Add grammatical genders for people and animals (e.g. two separate words for "male cousin" and "female cousin")

Uh, no. Grammatical genders should burn.

 

[Winner]

I don't think English should be made phonetic. Doing so would make the language lose a lot of its character.

Am I mistaken, or was the old English pretty close to being phonetic?

 

[RedRalph]

Simplify it as much as possible. I dont know how to do that as I'm not a linguist. My stepDa is, so he might have an idea.

 

[King of Town]

It's changing as we speak. i get work emails from people just out of college that are being sent with the same sort of language they would in text messages. No one has told them that business is still done in regular english...american english anyway

 

[Tee Kay]

Am I mistaken, or was the old English pretty close to being phonetic?

There were no "rules" on spelling back in the Old English period. In fact spelling standardisation is a relatively recent phenomenon (the first dictionary appeared in the 1700s).

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Am I mistaken, or was the old English pretty close to being phonetic?

It was a lot more phonetic than modern English is, because while we pronounce words differently now, the spellings remained the same. All those "ough" and "ght" words used to be pretty much phonetic spellings, considering how they were supposed to be spoken.

 

[scherbchen]

Am I mistaken, or was the old English pretty close to being phonetic?

you could make that argument, I guess. like many languages English was standardized (based on the dialect of one area) with the advent of printing at the time of late Middle English but continued to undergo phonetic changes after that. most prominent of those being the Great Vowel Shift, of course.

the problem with a change to a phonetic spelling is, evidently, that there are many different standard versions of English so you would end up with many different ways of spelling even in an area as small as London, let alone the entire UK or the entire English speaking world. Of course you could just take Received Pronounciation as the standard but that would merely replace one counterintuitive system of spelling with another for everybody who is not a BBC news anchor.

then there is the annoying fact that pronounciation changes over time so you would require a new standard every couple of decades.

 

[Lillefix]

Of course you could just take Received Pronounciation as the standard but that would merely replace one counterintuitive system of spelling with another for everybody who is not a BBC news anchor.

You think it's any different for other European countries(replace BBC with whatever national broadcaster)?

 

[philippe]

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase in plan that would be known as "Euro-English"

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c".
Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard "c" will be dropped in favor of the "k".
This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with the "f".
This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expected to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"s in the languag is disgrasful, and they should go away.

By the 4th year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

ZE DREM VIL FINALI KUM TRU!!
And zen ve vil take over ze vorld!!!

 

[holy king]

I think all linguists should be hit in the head with hammers, (with the possible exception of Noam Chomsky, of course).

you could invite them to a party.

 

[scherbchen]

You think it's any different for other European countries(replace BBC with whatever national broadcaster)?

not at all. was just picking a prominent example to make a point.

what is really troubling me is that I have no problems reading phillipe's last lines -.-