Interim Basic Policy for Mild Spelling Reform of English
Not every silent letter will be cut.
Short vowels are spelled with a, e, i, o, and u.
Deal with unphonetic digraphs and trigraphs.
Deal with "gh"/f/.
Deal with "ch"/k/.
Others.
Avoid "split digraphs". (Derivatives are affected.)
◎a-e⇒ae (make→maek)
◎e-e⇒ee (extreme→extreem)
◎i-e⇒-y-e (nice→nyce)
◎o-e⇒oe (home→hoem)
◎u-e⇒ue (cute→cuet)
Retain good digraphs.
/eɪ/ a(e), ai, -ay, ei(gh)
/iː/ e(e), ea, (i), (y)
/aɪ/ i(e), -y(e), -igh ; eye, buy
/oʊ/ o(e), oa, oh ; (eau)
/juː/ u(e), eu, ew ; (-ugh)
/uː/ oo ; u(e), eu, ew
/ʊ/ oo, u
Fix bad digraphs & trigraphs, OUGH & AUGH.
Split digraphs : a_e, e_e, i_e, o_e, u_e.
Why split? Why not put them together?
Why not ae, ee, ie, oe, ue? They wood merge with "polite vowels".
(However, "nice" cannot be "niec". Wood be "nyce".)
Avoid "split digraphs". (Derivatives are affected.)
◎a-e⇒ae (make→maek)
◎e-e⇒ee (extreme→extreem)
◎i-e⇒-y-e (nice→nyce)
◎o-e⇒oe (home→hoem)
◎u-e⇒ue (cute→cuet)
Retain the dubbled consonant letters in words when followed by endings such as -e, -ed, -en, -er, -est, -et, -ing, -a, -o, -y. For example: steppe, missed, sudden, supper, biggest, bonnet, cutting, gonna, hippo, happy, etc.
Retain the dubbled consonant letters at word end. For example: add, butt, err, inn, jazz, miss, off, purr, sell, etc.
cough == coff
enough == enuff
laugh == laff
rough == ruff
tough == tuff
trough == troff
archive == arkive
chameleon == cameleon
chaos == caos
chaotic == caotic
character == caracter
Optionally, use "f" for the "ph" when it has the /f/ sound.
apostrophe == apostrofy
catastrophe == catastrofy
cenotaph == cenotaf
elephant == elefant
epitaph == epitaf
phantom == fantom
photograph == fotograf
sophisticate == sofisticate
telephone == telefoen
(However, we retain "phat" and "phishing", for example)
Remoove surplus letters. Not every silent letter will be cut. Retain initial letters. Retain ck, tch, and wh.
alignment == (alinement)
asthma == asma
beauty == beuty
bureaucracy == burocracy
chaos == caos
comb == coam ("Cut one, add one.")
feather == fether
juice == juice (to avoid a split digraph "u_e")
juicy == juicy (to avoid a split digraph "u_e")
knight == knight (Retain an initial silent letter.)
night == night (Retain a mixed trigraph "-igh".)
pleasure == plesure
ready == reddy ("Cut one, add one.")
realm == relm
steady == steddy ("Cut one, add one.")
tomb == toom ("Cut one, add one.")
womb == woom ("Cut one, add one.")