European Union's
Official Language
New EC Regulations
The European Commission have 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
"EuroEnglish": --
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft
"c".. Sertainly, this will make
the sivil sevants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be
dropped in favor of
the "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards
kan have 1 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
expekted to
reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments
will enkorage 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 language is disgraceful, and they
should go away.
By the 4th yar, 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 kontaiining "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!!
A Plan for the
Improvement of English Spelling
by Mark Twain
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be
dropped to be
replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise
"x" would no longer be part of
the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be
retained would be the "ch"
formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform
"w" spelling,
so that "which" and "one" would take the same
konsonant, wile Year 3 might
well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and
Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j"
anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear
with Iear 5
doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so
modifaiing
vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15
or sou, it
wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez
"c", "y" and "x" -
bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez - tu riplais
"ch", "sh",
and "th" rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev
a lojikl,
kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld
Cool links:
http://victorian.fortunecity.com/vangogh/555/Spell/spel-links.html
http://www.pnx.com/gator/simpspel.htm