ψΩ

[NomadicSky]

I got the idea the idea from the no letter "h" tread

What if in the English alphabet there were characters for the "sh" and "ch" sounds
something like
ψ=ch
Ω=sh

So church would be ψurch
shop would be Ωop

you get the idea

[Chingo360]

That is like a greko-anglosaxon hybrid, haha it sure would be hilarious

[chunkeymonkey13q]

Perhaps such letters would exist for a while and then go extinct, since they could easily be represented by other letters and so therefore would be obsolete?

[Flocculencio]

IIRC one of the reasons why 'thorn' and 'eth' fell out of use was nothing to do with them being obsolete- it was merely a practical decision AFAIK.

When Caxton set up the first English printing press the type he had was produced on the Continent which didn't have eth and thorn. He substituted the unused 'Y' (which in Middle English was written 'i' or 'ie' e.g. 'onlie' for 'our 'only') which is why we get 'ye' for 'the'. However, 'ye' was never actually pronounced /yi:/.

However for some reason it became common practice to use 'th' instead of 'y'.

It's just one of those things- like the 18th C (and possibly earlier AFAIK) fashion for using long '∫' for 's' at the beginning and in the middle of a word and short 's' at the ends of words, hence, ∫hips.

Or the dropping of ash 'æ' in favour of 'ae' in British English or just plain 'e'. However, Old English ash was pronounced differently from the letter used in later times. Ash was pronounced /æ/ (as in 'that' /ðæt/) while the later æ was pronounced /i:/ (as in encyclopædia).

However, just like with the other double blind, nothing changes except for the fact we'd use different letters.

[Mayhem]

Originally Posted by Flocculencio

IIRC one of the reasons why 'thorn' and 'eth' fell out of use was nothing to do with them being obsolete- it was merely a practical decision AFAIK.

Forgive me for asking, but what're "eth" and "thorn"?

[Max Sinister]

Two old letters today only used in Icelandic. They stand for the two 'th' sounds (as in 'thing' and 'the' respectively).

Oh, and another one thing: If 'ye' stands for 'the' because some printer decided to use 'y' for 'th', what about 'thou', 'thee' and 'thine'?

[Flocculencio]

Originally Posted by Mayhem

Forgive me for asking, but what're "eth" and "thorn"?

Just to elaborate on what Max said.

Eth is 'ð' and thorn is 'þ'. In Old English and some dialects of Middle English they were voiced and voiceless 'th' respectively (th in 'them' is voiced and th in 'thick' is voiceless)

[DominusNovus]

Originally Posted by NomadicSky

I got the idea the idea from the no letter "h" tread

What if in the English alphabet there were characters for the "sh" and "ch" sounds
something like
ψ=ch
Ω=sh

So church would be ψurch
shop would be Ωop

you get the idea

Wouldn't church be ψurψ?

Also, I always thought we should assing k the ch sound. We've got c for the k sound, and k kinda looks like a c and an h pushed together.

[Ivan Druzhkov]

Could it be possible to use the "Ч" (ch) and "Ш" (sh) letters from the Cyrillic-based languages?

Heck, call Leo, he might be helpful on this.

[MrP]

Ah, as a Classicist, I think it could get confusing. Maybe different symbols, but using one that Ancient Greek uses as a "ps" and the other it uses as a long "o" to represent "ch" and "sh"? Seems iffy to me, given that the people who'll initially be writing this will be the people in the population most likely to know Greek . . .

[Susano]

Bah, Englsih wouldnt need an own ch letter. German, yes (two even), but English... I mean, your ch is mostly just an dj/tsh kinda thing. So dΩ or tΩ would do nicely enough for it :P

[Flocculencio]

Originally Posted by Susano

Bah, Englsih wouldnt need an own ch letter. German, yes (two even), but English... I mean, your ch is mostly just an dj/tsh kinda thing. So dΩ or tΩ would do nicely enough for it :P

Well phonetically, English 'ch' is /t∫/. Even the phoneticists haven't seen fit to come up with a single phonetic symbol for it

[Max Sinister]

Because they don't need it, and because it's really a combination of two phonems - 't' and 'sh'.

The Russians even have one letter for the English 'shch' (Chrushchev). In German, that would be even seven letters to write (schtsch)!