How would you change the English language?

[scherbchen]

that may be because english isnt a romance language.

alas, the curse (and the blessing) of the english language IS that it is a Germanic language with extensive romance influence. 1066? yeah. mucho romance influence. Renaissance? yeah. much más.

let's not talk about scandinavian influences and words like "sky", "they".

the English language is a mess. but it is beautiful. why not leave it at that?

 

[Loki130]

the English language is a mess. but it is beautiful. why not leave it at that?

because after its destroyed americans and brits will never be able to understand eachother, they'll go crazy, and the rest of us will live in peace

 

[carmen510]

We should just simply make an even more universal and understandable language. Most likely, it will be phonetic with stemmed words from most other languages.

 

[scherbchen]

because after its destroyed americans and brits will never be able to understand eachother, they'll go crazy, and the rest of us will live in peace

meh, just wait a generation and it will happen all by itself.

 

[Loki130]

one question: how will we get people to speak and use these new changes?

 

[Gooblah]

Indeed, I would either add more vowel symbols or use accent marks to represent various vowel sounds and make the representation of vowels in writing consistent so we don't have words like "cough" "though" and "bough" that have similar spellings but different vowel sounds or words like "bait" "rate" and "straight" that have the same vowel sounds and different spelling.

I would also replace all hard c's with k's, all soft c's with s's and all ch's with c's.

The point is that all of these can be learned if you just listen. I see no reason to revise a whole language because some foreigners find it hard to learn. I find French annoying, and Tamil even worse - and you don't see me proposing to revise them .

The c-sounds are usually based on vowels (the obvious exception being syllable breaks, but that's like most other languages IIRC):
ca, co, cu: hard (carrot, company, ****oo)
ce, ci: soft (celebrity, circle)

A consonant-and-h combo is a softened consonant (unless the other member of the combo is a c or s).

Looking at the things I just wrote, there are quite a few exceptions, but I think these are similar to the ones in other languages. Since we grow up with our language, we tend not to see the faults in our own, but the faults in others.

 

[scherbchen]

one question: how will we get people to speak and use these new changes?

which is a very decent question.

 

[Brighteye]

If I were in charge of language, I would alter my alterations depending on the region such that different regions misinterpreted each other and the world dictator. I would then overthrow him on a wave of popular support, at which point I would declare my alterations null and void, burn all evidence and rule wisely, not appointing someone to change the language.

 

[Cutlass]

simplify some of the spelling and call it good

 

[warpus]

The one thing with English is that it has TONS of exceptions... which why people struggle so much when learning it.

I'm not sure how that could be remedied though.

 

[theskald]

That will just make it worse and English speakers more obnoxius about silent letters in other languages.

Your reasoning on this escapes me.

Change it so I don't sound stupid.

Ha ha what I can't understand you because you sound so stupid Bigfoot jeez!

French is due for a spelling reform too, buddy.

Without a doubt. Anyone who hears the name of a country pronounced /laʊ/ and think "You know what this name needs is an 'S,' Laos, magnifique!" has some serious problems to work out...

Double consonents are good to indicate gemination, but that's rare in english nowadays; so it's good for words like unnamed.

Yeah, it's just another Latin artifact. It's one thing when "anno" means "year" and "ano" means "anus," but "battery?" Not really necessary.

Bah, adding genders to words be the worst choice you could possibly make. If any changes could be made to English, it would be the elimination of dialects. We shall all speak the Queen's English, accent and all. The Americans can suck it up.

Eeeeew, no thanks, good sah, I like my English rhotic.

Looks pretty good, much better than speako, speaki, speaka, speakiamo, speakate, speakano.

Ovvisamente suonano meglio le coniugazioni nella propria lingua, naturalmente non gli sembrerebbero bella trasporrle ad una lingua diversa... Sprachen sie = Sprachi = ...Curiosamente non suona male. Comunque le coniugazioni italiane suonano meglio di quelle.

Spoiler :

Obviously the endings sound better in their own language, of course they wouldn't sound good to you if you transpose them into a different language... Sprachen sie = Sprachi = ...Actually that doesn't sound bad. Anyway, the Italian endings sound better than those.

 

[scherbchen]

The one thing with English is that it has TONS of exceptions... which why people struggle so much when learning it.

I'm not sure how that could be remedied though.

solution: have everyone who studies English study German at the same time. trust me, they won't complain.

 

[theskald]

solution: have everyone who studies English study German at the same time. trust me, they won't complain.

Psh, I would. I want to learn Dutch.

 

[holy king]

Psh, I would. I want to learn Dutch.

ah, the worst of two worlds.

 

[Dachs]

Psh, I would. I want to learn Dutch.

Listen to 'Het Wilhelmus' and you will be rapidly disabused of that notion.

 

[Globex]

The point is that all of these can be learned if you just listen. I see no reason to revise a whole language because some foreigners find it hard to learn. I find French annoying, and Tamil even worse - and you don't see me proposing to revise them .

The c-sounds are usually based on vowels (the obvious exception being syllable breaks, but that's like most other languages IIRC):
ca, co, cu: hard (carrot, company, ****oo)
ce, ci: soft (celebrity, circle)

A consonant-and-h combo is a softened consonant (unless the other member of the combo is a c or s).

Looking at the things I just wrote, there are quite a few exceptions, but I think these are similar to the ones in other languages. Since we grow up with our language, we tend not to see the faults in our own, but the faults in others.

I agree that its not that difficult to distinguish between hard and soft c's in written English but I'm not suggesting these changes because of the difficulties that may arise when people try to learn the language. I am very comfortable with writing and speaking English and if any of these changes were actually implemented, it wouldn't make the language any easier or harder for me. On the whole, I appreciate the English language but I often find myself running across elements from other languages that I'd like to incorporate into the English language.

Most of the changes that I would suggest have to do with my preference of certain letters over others. I've always preferred using "k" and "s" instead of "c" and I like how Italian sometimes uses "c" to represent the "ch" sound. I also like the letters "v" and "z" so I would change spelling to increase of frequency of these letters in English. Other changes that I would suggest have to do with clearing ambiguities and allowing ideas to be expressed more concisely.

 

[Kerozine]

Zed. NOT 'zee'. ZED!

Say it with me. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-EHD!

 

[theskald]

ah, the worst of two worlds.

Listen to 'Het Wilhelmus' and you will be rapidly disabused of that notion.

Yeah yeah, you all jes' be hatin'.

This is why I want to learn dutch. I think it sounds fantastically interesting.

Zed. NOT 'zee'. ZED!

Say it with me. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-EHD!

Zita! Say it with me. ZZZZZZZZZZZ-ITA!

 

[Arwon]

I can't believe no one has not mentioned getting rid of double consonants. If you want to tell the difference between supper and super supper should be spelled super and super should be spelled sooper. having double s's in success is redundant, it should be spelled (another one, whats wrong with speled?) succes (the c's have different(another!) sounds so they should be kept in there).
Anyone else think this?

No. That's exactly why we should keep double consonants. They're there to help tell you whether the vowel is long or short, like in that example you gave of supper versus super!

Look at it this way: if I write the invented words pludden and pleden, you know how to pronounce them based on the double or single consonant.

The real culprit here is a lack of vowel symbols for all our vowel sounds, but unless you wanna start using accent marks, suck it up!

 

[CCRunner]

I would add the impersonal you that isn't as formal as "one" and maybe drop some irregular verbs.