Every once in a while I sometimes think about remaking the English writing system, as is normal I’m sure😅, and I wonder what would be the most useful revision of punctuation or phonetic.

    • Darthjaffacake@lemmy.worldOPM
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      hace 10 meses

      I’m always curious on people’s ideas on how to reduce the number of letters that are needed for spelling in english (48~ phonemes which is massive for an alphabet). Personally I find that it makes sense to spell zh (like the g in beige or the s in pleasure) with Ž as it’s so uncommon it’s not really worth the extra letter.

      • Justas🇱🇹@sh.itjust.works
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        Two letter phonemes are always possible.

        For example, Lithuanian has 32 letters in its alphabet, and has no x, q, or w, but has ą, ę, į, ų, ū, č, š and your aforementioned ž.

        It also has two phonemes that require two letters:

        ch to differentiate it from h, to separate hide (h sound) from removed (ch sound)

        dž to pronounce Jack and John as Džekas and Džonas, because j is pronounced as the y in yarp.

        it also as ie, au, ei and similar two vowel combos that slowly go from one sound to another.

        • Darthjaffacake@lemmy.worldOPM
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          True that’s also useful, Two letters has worked fine for a lot of stuff in English (th, sh, ch) I guess zh isn’t a stretch at all for us. I’m kinda worried about vowels though since we have so many, maybe an addition like Cyrillic’s ь makes sense so non is non but known is noьn or something

          • Justas🇱🇹@sh.itjust.works
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            You could either combine vowels to make new sounds or use something with diacritics like å, ä, ė or whatever is used the most.