How would you change the English language?

[TheLastOne36]

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!!!

The sad thing is that my cousins (aged around 15) chat with there friends like the bottom of Phillipes lines...

 

[Tomoyo]

ah, well but then (when we are talking aboot German!)you would have to deal with

auf das bett
unter das bett
unter dem bett
neben dem bett
über das bett
wegen des bettes! (do we even use that and is that how it is spelled? I confess I have no idea)
durch das bett

and all other kinds of shennanigans!

love the diphthong!

Well, yeah, but we don't have to take all those complications too.

You got that backwards. Keep "you" as the plural and bring back "thou."

I've thought about that, but decided that since I use the singular far more often than I do the plural, I might as well use the common word for the singular and the questionable word for the plural.

That seems unnecessary, it's not that hard to tell when a word is plural possessive just from the context, and if you want less ambiguity you can just do it the Latin way and say "[possessed noun] of [plural noun]."

Sometimes that sounds awkward. I'd rather talk about how awkward something would have been than actually be awkward.

We'd need more specific conjugations for your example to work, but I don't understand why "I" is such a bother. You could always say "I'm back," that's shorter.

Feels more poetic.

We have no subjunctive conjugation, just a mood, and that mood can be used with a simple past verb in the independent clause. "Would have [verbed]" is the past conditional. You can say "I wish you were here" and "I wished you were here." Unfortunately this is falling out of use, and that's very sad...

Mmhmm...

 

[Bill3000]

Why don't we just go back to the Latin alphabet and its pronunciation rules? Its even easier than pure phonetic spelling like you guys are trying to do.

Because we have 22 consonants in English, not only the 18 in Latin, and we have 10-14 vowels in english, not the 5 in Latin.

An alphabet and writing system must be adapted to the spoken language, not vice-versa. W, Z, U, V and Y are necessary, (though the vocalic Y can be replaced by I) though we can obviously simplify soft and hard Gs to g and j, soft Cs to S, and hard Cs to K.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Why not just use Esperanto?

 

[warpus]

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

Maybe you're right...

My second language was German.. I found it incredibly difficult to learn - coming from a Slavic language (Polish).

Learning English a couple years later was much much easier though; I always attributed this ease with which I learned the language to me having learned German beforehand.

I'm sure that I would have had huge problems learning English if I didn't have German in there as a stepping stone. Then again, who knows..

 

[Bill3000]

Why not just use Esperanto?

Because Esperanto is a horrible language.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Strangely it's the exact opposite for me, i learning English as my native language, then later on Polish, and now after using Polish practically everyday, learning German is EXTREMELY hard for me... Maybe i should learn how to have perfect writing in Polish first...

Because Esperanto is a horrible language.

It needs adjustments, and slavic influences, then it can be a very good continental language. I suggest adding our ż in there for a nice zjuu.

 

[scherbchen]

Because Esperanto is a horrible language.

as well as an artificial and Euro-centric construct that should be shunned.

 

[Dachs]

It needs [...] slavic influences, then it can be a very good continental language.

You lost me there.

 

[bhsup]

Why not just use Esperanto?

Because this is better.

Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

 

[Earthling]

Haha, very nice quote right there, but hardly compares to the beauty of Sindarin. As for real-life, Lojban is more modern anyway. Also, this just reminded me of something I do in my civ games, (maybe when the French are around): *angry at AI for not agreeing to some deal* "You pompous fool, we saved your cruddy little cultural cities back in WWII. If it weren't for us you'd all be speaking Nahuatl!"

Not to derail anything, but since there is little agreement on major grammatical changes, perhaps we can just come up with some words that need to be removed or added. The dictionary people always think they can remove or add whatever words they want, and I often won't stand for it, so undemocratic! I'm not fond of much of textspeak and the words that find recognition are often the worst. Also, just in general there are words around I'm sure people don't like: to start, the word "bodacious" should be erased, forever.

 

[theskald]

I've thought about that, but decided that since I use the singular far more often than I do the plural, I might as well use the common word for the singular and the questionable word for the plural.

Makes sense.

Sometimes that sounds awkward. I'd rather talk about how awkward something would have been than actually be awkward.

Fair enough, having the same letter for pluralization as possession is dumb, anyway.

Feels more poetic.

Poets get to do whatever they want.

Mmhmm...

???

Not to derail anything, but since there is little agreement on major grammatical changes, perhaps we can just come up with some words that need to be removed or added. The dictionary people always think they can remove or add whatever words they want, and I often won't stand for it, so undemocratic! I'm not fond of much of textspeak and the words that find recognition are often the worst.

Your method is undemocratic, and halfway decent lexicographer knows he is merely documenting language as it is used, not directing it. Not that I don't agree with you about the textspeak, of course.

the word "bodacious" should be erased, forever.

That would ruin the song "Ballad of Bodacious," and them's fightin' words, boy.

 

[Bill3000]

as well as an artificial and Euro-centric construct that should be shunned.

It's not because it's artificial or eurocentric that it should be shunned, it's just that it's really poorly designed.

 

[TheLastOne36]

You lost me there.

i said with drastic improvments. It's . .. .. .. . now as it is...

 

[Bill3000]

i said with drastic improvments. It's . .. .. .. . now as it is...

Esperanto has a huge number of slavicisms as it is...

 

[Valka D'Ur]

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

Yeah, it may be a mess, but it's a BEAUTIFUL mess! More importantly, it's OUR BEAUTIFUL MESS, so leave it alone!

Zed. NOT 'zee'. ZED!

Say it with me. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-EHD!

"This thread has been brought to you by a whole bunch of letters, but especially the letter ZED!"

I hope you're not talking about Roman numerals..

Nobody's talking about reforming math yet...

Haha, very nice quote right there, but hardly compares to the beauty of Sindarin. As for real-life, Lojban is more modern anyway. Also, this just reminded me of something I do in my civ games, (maybe when the French are around): *angry at AI for not agreeing to some deal* "You pompous fool, we saved your cruddy little cultural cities back in WWII. If it weren't for us you'd all be speaking Nahuatl!"

What's wrong with Nahuatl? I studied that in anthropology.

I like the suggestions that we go back to Latin, since I'm already learning it. Middle English is also a possibility.

Or -- and this is a RADICAL idea -- maybe we could simply put more emphasis on actually making people learn this stuff in school and not allowing them to graduate until they're actually literate? Some of the people I typed for in college were barely able to write at a Grade Six level; I sometimes wonder how they managed after they went on to university.

But I have to agree that English really needs a gender-neutral pronoun to take away the ambiguity of "he or she."

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Hmm...where to start? I'd probably prefer to start by replacing it entirely with Latin, and then improving that language instead. From what little I know of Old English it would be just as good a starting point, but I don't know it as well.


English needs to return to being a declined language, where word order is essentially irrelevant. It needs at least the 7 cases that Latin has, maybe a few more.

It needs regular Present/Imperfect/Future/Perfect/Pluperfect/Future Perfect tenses (plus possibly a tense neutral form) and Active/Passive/Middle voices. There should be seperate participles for every tense/voice combination.

It needs 4 genders: Masculine, Feminine, Neuter, and Irrelevant (for when it refers to mixed groups, when the gender is unknown, or where it makes no difference). Both grammatical and natural gender will be acceptable, but natural gender is usually preferred.

It needs 4 persons, the existing 3 and one for when the person is not known/doesn't matter/universally applies to anyone.

We need 3 numbers: singular, plural, and indeterminate (when it could be singular, plural, 0, negative, irrational, etc.)

Pronouns must exist for every combination of all persons, genders, and numbers and have distinct forms in every case.

Articles should cease to exist, with pronouns filling in when they actually effect the meaning.

It might be nice to introduce "proverbs" that can take the place of verbs like pronouns take the place of nouns.

Gerundives are to be used more.

No more superfluous usage of the verb to be.

The modern concept of a complete sentence should be ignored so long as complete ideas are expressed. Run-on sentences aren't really a problem if declined properly.





All the endings should be unique.

Spellings should all be phonetic. Some letters like Thorn will have to be brought back, if the alphabet isn't redone entirely. The TH, SH, CH, and soft J/G sounds definitely need to be seperate letters. We'll probably have to at least double the number of vowels too, and get rid of letters or letter combinations that make the same sound.



Audible, declinable quotation marks are an absolute necessity. We need to be able to use exact quotations in a grammatically correct way. These could be used for indirect statements quite well too.

 

[theskald]

English needs to return to being a declined language, where word order is essentially irrelevant. It needs at least the 7 cases that Latin has, maybe a few more.

NOOOOO! Analytical languages are great, we have enough synthetic crap!

It needs regular Present

Have it

/Imperfect

Why?

/Future

Have it

/Perfect

We have always had many perfect tenses for your enjoyment!

/Pluperfect

MagisterCultuum, meet Past Perfect. You had met past perfect before you typed that? I see...

/Future Perfect

I'm sure we will have used it often in the next few years.

(plus possibly a tense neutral form)

Meet infinitive and gerund.

and Active

Got it.

/Passive

Got that, too.

/Middle voices

Che?

There should be seperate participles for every tense/voice combination.

Why is that?

It needs 4 genders: Masculine, Feminine, Neuter, and Irrelevant (for when it refers to mixed groups, when the gender is unknown, or where it makes no difference). Both grammatical and natural gender will be acceptable, but natural gender is usually preferred.

I was suspicious from the start, but this is a joke, no?

It needs 4 persons, the existing 3 and one for when the person is not known/doesn't matter/universally applies to anyone.

It does need something better than the impersonal "you."

We need 3 numbers: singular, plural, and indeterminate (when it could be singular, plural, 0, negative, irrational, etc.)

Huh? We have collective nouns and nouns for abstract concepts that are uncountable, what do you mean by "numbers?" Do you mean we should start using different definite articles to define person, gender, and number?

Pronouns must exist for every combination of all persons, genders, and numbers and have distinct forms in every case.

Me, myself, I, he, she, him, her, etc. aren't enough?

Articles should cease to exist, with pronouns filling in when they actually effect the meaning.

Definitely a joke...

It might be nice to introduce "proverbs" that can take the place of verbs like pronouns take the place of nouns.

Meet "to do."

Gerundives are to be used more.

I don't see how we could possibly use our gerund ending more than we already do, it's already way past its intended purpose (to denote an action happening at the same time as another, previously mentioned one).

No more superfluous usage of the verb to be.

I was having fun a second ago, but now I'm just confused.

The modern concept of a complete sentence should be ignored so long as complete ideas are expressed. Run-on sentences aren't really a problem if declined properly.

There's merit to this idea.

All the endings should be unique.

This one has real merit, too.

Spellings should all be phonetic. Some letters like Thorn will have to be brought back, if the alphabet isn't redone entirely. The TH, SH, CH, and soft J/G sounds definitely need to be seperate letters.

Why would they need separate letters?

We'll probably have to at least double the number of vowels too, and get rid of letters or letter combinations that make the same sound.

I agree, using diacritics may be one way to go.

Audible, declinable quotation marks are an absolute necessity. We need to be able to use exact quotations in a grammatically correct way. These could be used for indirect statements quite well too.

Do you mean like if I were to say "adding 'to say' before a quotation is plenty audible?" I don't really get what you're saying here.