The Vanguard Language
English Text, 7 similar words, 147 characters
Did you read that Jim wiped the dew off of John’s
Clarinet and replaced the red reed? I had read that
It was on his to do list because he had borrowed it
and John was due to play it soon.
Spasish Text, 7 distinct wurds, 149 caeracturs
Did uu reed that Jim wiipd thu doeѲ of uv Jonz
claerenet and reeplaasd thu red reedΦ? II had redΦ
that it wus on hiz toe doe list beecos hee had borood
it and Jon wus doeΦ toe plaa it soen.
If you can understand the second paragraph that is
written in the Spasish derivative language with
exact pronunciations then you are candidate
material for the Space Vanguard.
I daydream about the inefficiencies in the systems we use in our daily lives and I try to think up solutions to make our standards simpler and more self-explanitory. The first problem we run into in any attempt to organize a new society is to decide which language to use. I grew up with English and am therefore naturally prejudiced in favor of it.
English is a hard language to learn but worth the effort because it is very direct and concisely conveys information through the adjective, subject, verb, and object format that is clearer and shorter than other languages. Also it is generally gender neutral, which is easier. But like most of our systems it has evolved haphazardly and was influenced with random spellings and phonetic sounds taken from many other languages. After all of the cultural conglomerating was done the result was that a letter in English can be sounded out in many different ways, "c" can sound like an s, k, or even be silent (I want to standardize it as the "k" sound only). Because there is no standardization you end up having to memorize the spelling of each individual word. That is why it takes children about twice as long to learn English as a Romance language like French.
The International Phonetics Alphabet Committee ended up with 107 individual letters to try and capture every speaking sound we make. I am not a linquistic expert but here is my standardizing proposal for a new derivative English language called Spasish that uses combinations of just 28 letters to arrive at most of our sounds. Each word will have just one logical spelling and pronunciation. This will help children everywhere to quickly learn the reformed language and computers can be programmed to accurately autotype a dictated speech. Dyslexic children may even be able to read Spasish without a noticable stumble. See this article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1233-english-is-toughest-european-language-to-read.html
We can leave the letters k, q, and y on the keyboard but they will mainly be for archaic spellings and math equations. The five vowels a, e, i, o, and u will be assumed to be pronounced in their short vowel form. Think of gat, get, git, got, and gut. To make their long vowel sounds we simply double type them as gaat, geet, giit, goot, and guut, and these words obviously won't need an e at the end anymore to show that they use long vowels. Where y is used as a substitute vowel now we will start using the real vowels like in the words flii or simplee. That takes care of the first ten vowel sounds. For the next ones we can use new diphthongs: ae for the vowel sound in the word fair, oy for the sound in toy, oe for the sound in moon, ou for the sound in could, and we'll stick with the old combination ow for the sound in cow.
We can still use digraphs of multiple letters to create complex sounds like th, sl, ing, and shun. Ph would be dropped in favor of the simpler f. Everything will be much easier to write. For example, the word "though" can be shortened to "thoo". I placed the letters on a new Spasish keyboard with an emphasis on fast typing combinations. I will show the proposed keyboard later.
Then there is the tough problem of homophones, words that sound alike but have different meanings and spellings, like lead and led. We want to stick to the new rational spelling in the main body of each word so that your eye can quickly discern its unique sound. I propose that we form a committee of experts to prioritize the words in each homophone group based on their relative usage in speech and then give the most commonly used word in each group the simplest spelling.
Then I am renaming two old symbols as new silent letters; the grist (an o with a vertical line through it) to be used as a silent letter at the end of the next most popularly used word; and the grost (an o with a horizontal line through it) to be used at the end of the least popularly used word, if there is one.
As a further simplification we can eliminate the normal use of the apostrophe, contractions like couldn't will be shortened to couldnt. And to create possessive words we will just add a z onto the end of them instead of an s, like "this is Bobz." If you have more than one Bob they will still be written Bobs, but now the plural possessive is Bobsz, instead of Bobs'. This will save many key strokes and shifts.
Obviously this would be a major effort to switch the US or UK populations over to this derivative language and that is why we need to team up some of you "early adoptors" into an experimental region where these rationalized systems can be tried out and perfected. As an Economist I try to rate my innovations on their improvements to technological production and my rough guess is that after a five year conversion process this language innovation by itself will create an ongoing annual 0.01% increase in GDP.
Did you read that Jim wiped the dew off of John’s
Clarinet and replaced the red reed? I had read that
It was on his to do list because he had borrowed it
and John was due to play it soon.
Spasish Text, 7 distinct wurds, 149 caeracturs
Did uu reed that Jim wiipd thu doeѲ of uv Jonz
claerenet and reeplaasd thu red reedΦ? II had redΦ
that it wus on hiz toe doe list beecos hee had borood
it and Jon wus doeΦ toe plaa it soen.
If you can understand the second paragraph that is
written in the Spasish derivative language with
exact pronunciations then you are candidate
material for the Space Vanguard.
I daydream about the inefficiencies in the systems we use in our daily lives and I try to think up solutions to make our standards simpler and more self-explanitory. The first problem we run into in any attempt to organize a new society is to decide which language to use. I grew up with English and am therefore naturally prejudiced in favor of it.
English is a hard language to learn but worth the effort because it is very direct and concisely conveys information through the adjective, subject, verb, and object format that is clearer and shorter than other languages. Also it is generally gender neutral, which is easier. But like most of our systems it has evolved haphazardly and was influenced with random spellings and phonetic sounds taken from many other languages. After all of the cultural conglomerating was done the result was that a letter in English can be sounded out in many different ways, "c" can sound like an s, k, or even be silent (I want to standardize it as the "k" sound only). Because there is no standardization you end up having to memorize the spelling of each individual word. That is why it takes children about twice as long to learn English as a Romance language like French.
The International Phonetics Alphabet Committee ended up with 107 individual letters to try and capture every speaking sound we make. I am not a linquistic expert but here is my standardizing proposal for a new derivative English language called Spasish that uses combinations of just 28 letters to arrive at most of our sounds. Each word will have just one logical spelling and pronunciation. This will help children everywhere to quickly learn the reformed language and computers can be programmed to accurately autotype a dictated speech. Dyslexic children may even be able to read Spasish without a noticable stumble. See this article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1233-english-is-toughest-european-language-to-read.html
We can leave the letters k, q, and y on the keyboard but they will mainly be for archaic spellings and math equations. The five vowels a, e, i, o, and u will be assumed to be pronounced in their short vowel form. Think of gat, get, git, got, and gut. To make their long vowel sounds we simply double type them as gaat, geet, giit, goot, and guut, and these words obviously won't need an e at the end anymore to show that they use long vowels. Where y is used as a substitute vowel now we will start using the real vowels like in the words flii or simplee. That takes care of the first ten vowel sounds. For the next ones we can use new diphthongs: ae for the vowel sound in the word fair, oy for the sound in toy, oe for the sound in moon, ou for the sound in could, and we'll stick with the old combination ow for the sound in cow.
We can still use digraphs of multiple letters to create complex sounds like th, sl, ing, and shun. Ph would be dropped in favor of the simpler f. Everything will be much easier to write. For example, the word "though" can be shortened to "thoo". I placed the letters on a new Spasish keyboard with an emphasis on fast typing combinations. I will show the proposed keyboard later.
Then there is the tough problem of homophones, words that sound alike but have different meanings and spellings, like lead and led. We want to stick to the new rational spelling in the main body of each word so that your eye can quickly discern its unique sound. I propose that we form a committee of experts to prioritize the words in each homophone group based on their relative usage in speech and then give the most commonly used word in each group the simplest spelling.
Then I am renaming two old symbols as new silent letters; the grist (an o with a vertical line through it) to be used as a silent letter at the end of the next most popularly used word; and the grost (an o with a horizontal line through it) to be used at the end of the least popularly used word, if there is one.
As a further simplification we can eliminate the normal use of the apostrophe, contractions like couldn't will be shortened to couldnt. And to create possessive words we will just add a z onto the end of them instead of an s, like "this is Bobz." If you have more than one Bob they will still be written Bobs, but now the plural possessive is Bobsz, instead of Bobs'. This will save many key strokes and shifts.
Obviously this would be a major effort to switch the US or UK populations over to this derivative language and that is why we need to team up some of you "early adoptors" into an experimental region where these rationalized systems can be tried out and perfected. As an Economist I try to rate my innovations on their improvements to technological production and my rough guess is that after a five year conversion process this language innovation by itself will create an ongoing annual 0.01% increase in GDP.
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