A friend of mine sent me the URL to a Wikipedia article dedicated to "English language spelling reform". In my response at our Facebook Group, I highlighted the following sentence from the article: "Spelling reform has rarely attracted widespread public support, and has sometimes met organized resistance from the educated majority who do not need a reform." I added that, indeed, it is hard to see how a reform of the English alphabet could take place with all the books that have already been written... Although, there might be constructive suggestions about this by those who are in favor of the reform.
Naturally, I realize that reforming the English alphabet is probably as impossible as rebuilding the engines of an airplane flying at 30,000 feet.
However, playing with the idea is a lot of fun.
Besides, there were calls for reform as early as in the 19th century.
The following is from Ken Westmoreland's answer to the Quora question
"Why does English retain archaic spellings, instead of reforming to match how things are pronounced, like other languages do?"
"In fact, there was a school of thought in both the US and Britain that simplifying English spelling would help those countries to expand,
or maintain, their cultural influence, because it would be easier for non-native speakers to learn to read and write it.
In 1897, a speaker at the convention of the National Association of American Manufacturers said:
I believe that the highest interest of Christian civilization and of humanity would be served by making the spelling and pronunciation
of the English language phonetic.
He claimed that if spelling were to be made logical, then it would take less than fifty years for China and Japan to become English-speaking
Christian nations whose populations would constitute an enormous market for American products."
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AJÁNLOM AZ OLDALT
