User:BryanAJParry/English Spellings

Drawth

ℹ	This leaf is a drawth wordwrestling a riddle or a wen that has arisen in the making of Anglish. See other drawths.

English spellings are rather odd given the Theedish birth of English. For instance, in English we spell /kw/ "qu", but this cluster (or the kincluster /kv/) is mostly spelt "kw" (or "kv") in the Theedish tungs of Europe (as it was in Old English). After the Norman Overwin in 1066, English not only borrowed a great deal of outland words, but it also became spelt so as to look like French (and other Latinborn tungs). Some say that these shifts have made English spelling far less logical and straightforward. Below is a list of thoughts for how English could be spelt if it were to use the analogy of the other teutonish tungs.

/θ/ "Thing" and /ð/ "This" could be "Þ" (known as "thorn"): "þis þing"
/ʍ/ "When" could be "Hw": "Hwen"
/tʃ/ "Cheek" could be "C": "ceek"
/ʃ/ "Ship" could be "Sc": "scip"
/kw/ "Queen" could be "Kw": "kween"
/k/ "Cat" would be abolished in favor of "K"

Also, "le" and "re", as in "hurdle" and "centre", would be respelt as "el" and "er".

Long vowels could be spelt by doubling them or adding "a": "naam", "great", "feet", "hwiit", "toad", "doom", "huus"

The net therefore would be something like this:

Þe þohtful man koht his wiif a kwik and kuning gray fisc.

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Since the shaping of this trammet isn't clear, I will eathly put a stretch between my framework and the earlier framework.

• /θ/ "Thing" and /ð/ "This" could both be "Þþ" (called "thorn").
• In Old English, fricatives (th/s/f and so forth) only had the voiceless letter, and were voiceless at the end and beginning of a letter, but were voiced next to a vowel or voiced consonent. The, therefore, would have a voiceless Th, while Bathe or Ethel would have a voiced Th. This applies to all other fricatives.
• /ʍ/ "When" could be "Hw", the original spelling of wh.
• /ʃ/ "Ship" could be "Sc", how it was spelled in OE.
• /tʃ/ "Cheek" could be "C".
• /dʒ/ "Edge" could be "Cg", as spelled in OE. Being at the beginning or end of the word does not matter in this case. Or, it could be "Ȝȝ", known as "yogh", which was one of yogh's purposes in Middle English.
• /k/ "King" could be "K", as spelled already in English and in other Germanic tongues.
• /kw/ "Queen" could be "Kw", as spelled in many Germanic tongues.
• /j/ "You" could be "Jj", as spelled in literally all Germanic tongues but English.
• /aɪ/ "Mind" could be "Ij", as in Dutch.
• /eɪ/ "Clay" could be "Ea", as in Middle English and Modern English exceptions. However, this is only for words with a real long A, as in bane. Ay and Ey could be spelt "Ej".
• /er/ "Scare" could be "er", as scare is spelled "sker" in Middle English.
• /i/ "Me" could be "Ee".
• -y and -ly could be spelled -ie and -lie
• /oʊ/ "Row" could be "Oo", as in Middle English and Modern English exceptions.
• /aʊ/ "About" could be "Aw", as in Middle English. Saw was pronounced Sao back then.
• /u/ "Room" could be "Ew".
• /ʊ/ "Book" could be "Oe", on basis of the spelling of Book in Dutch and Afrikaans "boek", and the pronunciation of it in German being similar.
• /ʌ/ "Run" could be "U" in all cases, no Oo like in "come". At the end of a word, like in "the", a lone E could make this sound.
• /æ/ "Cat" could be "Ǽæ", as in OE (called "ash").
• /ɔ/ "Raw" could be "Oa", as written in Middle English.
• "/x/" "Enough" could just be written phonetically, F, W, G, or H if it is silent (Caught would be Koaht).
• Z & V: Both were made specifically for making voiced consonants from french. They will be replaced by F and S. If it is -ve, it will be -fe. If it is in some way -ze, it will be -se.
• Possessive nouns and contractions. Contractions either could merge the word without an apostrophe, or not be written. Possessive nouns could be written as -es.
• -ed, -es, -ing. Only when the E in -es is said it will be written, same with -ed. The vowel written could be i rather than e, as possesive nouns use -es under this system. -ed without the i could simply be -t. -ing will be -end when showing present tense, as in Old English, but will be -ing when forming nouns, again, as in Old English. The merging of -end and -ing is a grammatical mess.
• Lastly, the example. Here it goes, in American English pronunciation for A/Æ but British English pronunciation for Aw/Au:
• Woakend daun þe rood in þis neahborhoed is noþing lijk ænie uþer. Þer ar geangs ænd mugers hwew al hæf al nefer hæfe been lokt up. Not efen þe loa skers þem, but þej sker þe loa. Þæt is hwij þej nefer hæf been koaht bij þe loa.

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Anglo-Saxon Runes. Using the Latin alphabet in English has always seemed silly to me, but many are for it, which is why I made the Germanic Latin system directly above the dash. In case you do not know, runes have no capitals, and no punctuation. For sake of being a working writing system, the Latin punctuation system will still be used and runes will be treated as an alphabet. They'll be in runic order, "FUÞORCG...." Since many of the sounds no longer exists in English or are unclear, the sound they should make now will be shown. In Old English, fricatives (th/s/f and so forth) only had the voiceless letter, and were voiceless at the end and beginning of a letter, but were voiced next to a vowel or voiced consonent. This is why no Z or V are shown, but D and B are.

• F:ᚠ
• U: ᚢ (uh, as in "run").
• Þ:ᚦ (th, as in "both" AND "bathe")
• O:ᚩ (o, as in "not". A bit useless in American English...)
• R:ᚱ
• C:ᚳ (ch, as in "cheese".)
• GH:ᚷ (dge/j, as in "bridge". Gh becoming J/Dge may seem weird, but Cgh made the J sound in OE, and Ȝ, which also made the Gh sound, made the J sound in Middle English. Real Gh will be written as an H when silent, or phonetically when a G, F, or other.)
• W:ᚹ
• H:ᚻ
• N:ᚾ
• I:ᛁ (i, as in "it", e, as in "see".)
• J:ᛄ (y, as in "you".)
• EO:ᛇ (oh, as in "wrote". Eo became Ee, but Ia also became Ee, and Ia sounds nothing like Oh.)
• P:ᛈ
• X:ᛉ (x, as in "axe".)
• S:ᛋ
• T:ᛏ
• B:ᛒ
• E:ᛖ (eh, as in "met".)
• M:ᛗ
• L:ᛚ
• Ŋ:ᛝ (ng, as in "king". When it is -nk, it will be ŊK.)
• Ø:ᛟ (oo, as in "book".)
• D:ᛞ
• A:ᚪ (a, as in "father".)
• Æ:ᚫ(a, as in "cat".)
• Ü:ᚣ (oo, as in "boot".)
• IA:ᛡ (iy, as in "time".)
• EA:ᛠ (ay, as in "make".)
• (here's where the post-alphabet runes come in)
• QU:ᛢ
• K:ᛣ/ᛤ (The first, ᛣ, is when it is K. The second, ᛤ, is when it is ck/kk.)
• ST:ᛥ (sh, as in "shop".)
• G:ᚸ
• OU: ᚪᚹ (aw)
• AU: ᚩᚪ (oa)
• ᛫ (fancy spacing character used in runic text. After commas it will not be used, after any latin punctuation it will not be used, it is just between words."ABC᛫ABC᛫ABC᛬ABC!ABC᛫ABC." ="Abc abc abc, abc! Abc abc."Comma is a double dot, ᛬, but period, question mark, exclamation mark, quotation marks, etc, are all still in-tact.)
• Anything not stated here is the rune equivalent of the latin characters. -es for possessive becomes ᛖᛋ, ᛁᛞ for -id, ᛖᚾᛞ for -end, and so forth.
• Lastly, the example:
• ᚹᚩᚪᛣᛖᚾᛞ᛫ᛞᚪᚹᚾ᛫ᚦᛖ᛫ᚱᛇᛞ᛫ᛁᚾ᛫ᚦᛁᛋ᛫ᚾᛠᚻᛒᚩᚱᚻᛟᛞ᛫ᛁᛋ᛫ᚾᚩᚦᛁᛝ᛫ᛚᛡᛣ᛫ᚫᚾᛁ᛫ᚩᚦᛖᚱ.ᚦᛖᚱ᛫ᚪᚱ᛫ᚸᛠᛝᛋ᛫ᚫᚾᛞ᛫ᛗᚢᚸᛖᚱᛋ᛫ᚻᚹᚣ᛫ᚪᛚ᛫ᚻᚫᚠ᛫ᚪᛚ᛫ᚾᛖᚠᛖᚱ᛫ᛒᛁᚾ᛫ᛚᚩᛣᛏ᛫ᚢᛈ.ᚾᚩᛏ᛫ᛖᚠᛖᚾ᛫ᚦᛖ᛫ᛚᚩᚪ᛫ᛋᛣᛖᚱᛋ᛫ᚦᛖᛗ᛬ᛒᚢᛏ᛫ᚦᛠ᛫ᛋᛣᛖᚱ᛫ᚦᛖ᛫ᛚᚩᚪ.
• ^ Very stylistic, eh? Unless, of course, you don't have a newer version of Unicode. Or Unicode at all. Then it's just boxes and a couple periods.

See Also

New Spellings