ᛗᛇᛊᛏ populus ᚺᚹᚨ ᚁᚑᚇᚐᚔᚏᚔᚋ ᚹᛁᚦ ᛊᛖᛟ māteria ᛇᛏ ᛖᚨᛚᛚ... (An Alternate English Orthography)

[Miranda Brawner]

There have been many proposals for spelling and vocabulary reform of the English language, but few have been this radical! What if we took a little inspiration from the Japanese writing system which combines multiple scripts into one? By this, I mean that we divide English words into the language families they originate from, and then write each word in a script that is appropriate to that family. Behold the madness! For example, the first sentence of "Tα Πολιτικά ᚨᚾᛞ ᛊᛖᛟ ᛖᛜᛚᛁᛊᚲ Lingua" (Politics and the English Language) by Γεώργιος ᛟᚱᛞᚹᛖᛚᛚᚨ (George Orwell) becomes this:

"ᛗᛇᛊᛏ populus ᚺᚹᚨ ᚁᚑᚇᚐᚔᚏᚔᚋ ᚹᛁᚦ ᛊᛖᛟ māteria ᛇᛏ ᛖᚨᛚᛚ ᚹᛟᛚᛞᛖ admittere ᚦᛇᛏ ᛊᛖᛟ ᛖᛜᛚᛁᛊᚲ lingua ᛁᛊ ᛁᚾ ᚨᚾ ᛒᛇᛞᛞᛖᛚ ᚹᛖᚷ, ᛒᚢᛏᚨᚾ ᚺᛁᛏ ᛁᛊ generāliter assūmptum ᚦᛇᛏ ᚹᛖ ᚾᛖ ᚲᚢᚾᚾᚨᚾ ᛒᛁ cōnscia āctiō ᛞᛟ ᚨᚾᛁᚦᛁᛜ ᚨᛒᚢᛏᚨᚾ ᚺᛁᛏ."[१]

Is there any plausibility in a system like this becoming the standard for English? Of course a realistic version wouldn't be as "pure" as the rendition I've used. It would be full of false etymologies and exceptions to the rules. I've also used archaic spellings for everything in order to make it look more exotic, yet the grammar is mostly modern, so I've completely ignored how languages change over time, which isn't realistic at all.

[१] Source: Orwell, George. "Politics and the English Language." Horizon, 1946. Retrieved from http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit, 2 February 2019.

Yes, that's the Devanagari symbol for 1 inside the brackets.

 

[Deleted member 114175]

Ωωατ ωουλδ βε ρεαλλυ ωειρδ ις ιφ θε γρεεκ αλφαβετ ωας υσεδ ινστεαδ οφ Λατιν

 

[Emperor Norton I]

My dyslexia hurts.

 

[John7755 يوحنا]

I wonder if something like this could occur with some sort of prestige writing system such as Akkadian molding to common Semitic and Persian writings, thus cuneiform becoming a sort of kanji like figment in Middle Eastern languages.

 

[Legofan4]

That seems needlessly complicated for what gain exactly.

 

[Deleted member 114175]

That seems needlessly complicated for what gain exactly.

Job security for scribes.

 

[WheelyWheelyLegsNoFeely]

What script is the fourth word in? I recognize everything else as either Latin, Germanic runes, or the Greek alphabet, but I have no idea what that is.

 

[fdh256]

What script is the fourth word in? I recognize everything else as either Latin, Germanic runes, or the Greek alphabet, but I have no idea what that is.

Ogham - Irish runes. Although I had no idea that 'bother' came from Irish.

 

[John7755 يوحنا]

Job security for scribes.

Interesting. I am not sure if you are serious, but this may be the case at least to some degree. Though this is not my main area of skill, it would seem approximate to assume that the addition of vast amounts of kanji like additions to a language's native grammar, would require a specialized class apart from even the traditionally educated, whose profession was simply the transcription of important information and setting of standards fro grammar. Assuming Akkadian does better in its later stages, this could be emphasized with the combination of Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform into Aramaic and or other Mid East languages, with a particular scholar priestly class intensifying for a longer period of time. However, the issue I see is, how do we ensure that the prestige of this system is maintained? Power is ultimately the origin of prestige and is the fuel by which it operates; considering this point, what sort of structure could provide the fuel with which to allow Akkadian to be used such? In the case of Kanji in Japanese and or similar structures in Korea, this was due to the continued dominance of China as a centre of population and reincarnating empire, such a feat is more difficult in the Western world.

Another option, is a sort of continual Hellenic Mid East, especially Hellenic Iran and Egypt. Thus, as otl, we see the sort of bilingual Kushanshah and Indo-Greek transcriptions develop into an odd combination of Sanskrit, Greek and Avestan.

 

[MorningDew]

Japanese is rather unique in it's ''three scripts", but hiragana and katakana if you think about it are essentially the same thing as uppercase and lowercase letters in the Roman, Greek, cyrillic, and armenian alphabets. Its honestly amazing that Japan didn't standardize them into a single unified 'kana' system along with some hanzi for common words.
Considering thats what Korea did with their version of hanzi and the hangeul "alphabet" iotl and the two countries have been in contact with each other since the beginning of recorded history in that area, written Japanese doesn't have an excuse for bring ludicrously needlessly overcomplex.

Mixed writing systems evolve generally from languages themselves mixing, and we can see that iotl with some native words in English (like guest) spelled in a French way, but since they both used the Latin alphabet there's no way a Japanese style system would ever arise. Maybe in the land of the asb it could be different, but the Latin alphabet (mostly) fits English pretty well, and since it represents Dutch and German much better, it's perfectly possible to have a consistent English spelling system, you just need to add thorn, edh, and have accute accents on vowels and boom! Consistent English spelling!

 

[Frrf]

The idea of cuneiform persisting intrigues me. It'd probably be easiest to do if one butterflies Christianity and Islam, allowing the old Mesopotamian religion to survive. The priests would then continue to use Sumerian and Akkadian for liturgical purposes, and temple scribes would need to be maintained to copy older texts. Temple scribes would be the easiest source of literate people, and if they were trained first in Sumerian/Akkadian, they might use cuneiform logographic signs as a shorthand in Aramaic to save on papyrus, confident that the receipiant would understand. This could create a very distinctive Mesopotamian-Aramaic script.

 

[The Professor]

As others have said having a mixed system is difficult to produce considering the history of English.
However, a more mixed alphabet is possible. The notable differences between Wessex Early Old English and Northumbrian Early Old English was that the former used runes for "w" and "th" sounds whilst the latter modified roman.
A less united western Christendom could see more runes and even Greek import, add in maintenance/variance of diacritics as English (or even Englishes) develop, and it θyᛝks tó mé þæt Èᛝgliş ƿyd lók different.

 

[Miranda Brawner]

Ωωατ ωουλδ βε ρεαλλυ ωειρδ ις ιφ θε γρεεκ αλφαβετ ωας υσεδ ινστεαδ οφ Λατιν

Maybe England switches over to the Greek or Cyrillic alphabet, due to anti-Catholic prejudic, in the Tudor, Stuart, or Cromwell era? It wouldn't be as big a shift as going back to the Futhark, and it would go along with the self-image of Protestantism being some sort of a reconstruction of the early church, before it was co-opted by the Roman Empire.

 

[Miranda Brawner]

As others have said having a mixed system is difficult to produce considering the history of English.
However, a more mixed alphabet is possible. The notable differences between Wessex Early Old English and Northumbrian Early Old English was that the former used runes for "w" and "th" sounds whilst the latter modified roman.
A less united western Christendom could see more runes and even Greek import, add in maintenance/variance of diacritics as English (or even Englishes) develop, and it θyᛝks tó mé þæt Èᛝgliş ƿyd lók different.

Yeah, I could see that. Seems like a good compromise.

 

[CHKeeley]

Maybe England switches over to the Greek or Cyrillic alphabet, due to anti-Catholic prejudic, in the Tudor, Stuart, or Cromwell era? It wouldn't be as big a shift as going back to the Futhark, and it would go along with the self-image of Protestantism being some sort of a reconstruction of the early church, before it was co-opted by the Roman Empire.

I think this all is pretty ASB though, Protestants liked to change things but randomly adopted the script of:

A: the Greeks who are a subject of the Ottoman Turk and don’t really have much cultural influence outside the limited classical studies

B: The Russians who are viewed as oriental barbarians by most Europeans and haven’t really made any impact on intellectual Europe

It’s definitely a stretch imo. Greek is at least a tiny bit plausible if you stretch reality but going to Cyrillic I think is basically completely ASB considering it had 0 cultural clout in the 16th century. Going back to Futhark is also ASB I think, if you’re out to change English orthography perhaps go back to 1066 and have Harold Godwinson win at Hastings. The English church at that point operated a lot in the vernacular and was distant from Rome so that’s why the Pope supposedly granted William the Bastard the Papal Banner in his invasion. If the English win, perhaps they separate and subscribe to a distant Greek interpretion somehow and have it come in that way. Still pretty implausible but I think slightly less so since by the 16th century Latin had been used for almost 1000 years and would be way harder to change (particularly with the advent of the printing press as common media.)

 

[9 Fanged Hummingbird]

I can see literally no reason for this to happen, English already had a perfectly serviceable alphabet gift-wrapped for it whereas Japanese uses multiple writing systems because they were originally introduced to writing via the logo-syllabic Chinese script and they augmented it with native Japanese syllabic scripts to better represent their own language. An alphabet doesn't have any of these issues and the Roman alphabet is already standard so what's the actual point to using a bunch of different alphabets or other writing systems in conjunction with a perfectly workable alphabet?

 

[ModusViv]

Job security for scribes.

It would sort of tend to inhibit adoption of the printing press. So many specialized characters would be needed.

 

[Celtic Bard]

How would a keyboard on a computer work? Plainly, the only reason this hasn't been done is that this is too much of a bother. That and the whole world is too used to one form. It can't be implemented even it were to be adopted.

 

[Miranda Brawner]

Here's a section of Genesis using the same convention I used for the first post. I picked this passage because it has some Egyptian words that add some extra visual flair.

Γένεσις ३९: १-६

१ ᚾᚢ יוֹסֵף ᚷᛖᚺᛇᚠᛞ ᚷᛖᛒᛖᛟᚾ ᛒᚱᛟᚺᛏ ᛟᚠᛞᚢᚾᛖ ᛏᛟ , ᚨᚾᛞ

, ᚨᚾ officiārius ᛟᚠ , ᛊᛖ capitāneus ᛟᚠ ᛊᛖ ᚹᚨᚱᛞ, ᚨᚾ ius, ᚷᛖᚺᛇᚠᛞ ᛒᛟᚺᛏᛖ ᚺᛁᛗ ᚠᚱᚨᛗ الإسماعليون ᚺᚹᚨ ᚷᛖᚺᛇᚠᛞ ᛒᚱᛟᚺᛏ ᚺᛁᛗ ᛟᚠᛞᚢᚾᛖ ᚦᛇᚱ. २ ᛊᛖ ᚺᛚᚨᚠᛟᚱᛞ ᚹᛇᛊ ᚹᛁᚦ יוֹסֵף, ᚨᚾᛞ ᚺᛖ ᛒᛖᚲᚹᚨᛗ ᚨᚾ successusᚠᚢᛚ ᛗᚨᚾ, ᚨᚾᛞ ᚺᛖ ᚹᛇᛊ ᛁᚾ ᚦᛇᛏ ᚺᚢᛊ ᛟᚠ ᚺᛁᛊ ius magister. ३ ᚺᛁᛊ magister ᛊᛖᚨᚺ ᚦᛇᛏ ᛊᛖ ᚺᛚᚨᚠᛟᚱᛞ ᚹᛇᛊ ᚹᛁᚦ ᚺᛁᛗ ᚨᚾᛞ ᚦᛇᛏ ᛊᛖ ᚺᛚᚨᚠᛟᚱᛞ causābātur ᛖᚨᛚᛚ ᚦᛇᛏ ᚺᛖ ᛞᛁᛞᛖ ᛏᛟ succēdere ᛁᚾ ᚺᛁᛊ ᚺᚨᚾᛞᚨ. ४ ᛊᚹᚨ יוֹסֵף ᚠᚨᚾᛞ fauor ᛁᚾ ᚺᛁᛊ ᛊᛁᚺᚦ ᚨᚾᛞ attendēbat ᚺᛁᛗ, ᚨᚾᛞ ᚺᛖ ᛗᚨᚲᛟᛞᛖ ᚺᛁᛗ ᛟᚠᛖᚱᛊᛖᛖᚱᛖ ᛟᚠ ᚺᛁᛊ ᚺᚢᛊ ᚨᚾᛞ ᛈᚢᛏ ᚺᛁᛗ ᛁᚾ carrus ᛟᚠ ᛖᚨᛚᛚ ᚦᛇᛏ ᚺᛖ ᚷᛖᚺᛇᚠᛞ. ५ ᚠᚱᚨᛗ ᛊᛖ ᛏᛁᛗᚨ ᚦᛇᛏ ᚺᛖ ᛗᚨᚲᛟᛞᛖ ᚺᛁᛗ ᛟᚠᛖᚱᛊᛖᛖᚱᛖ ᛁᚾ ᚺᛁᛊ ᚺᚢᛊ ᚨᚾᛞ ᛟᚠᛖᚱ ᛖᚨᛚᛚ ᚦᛇᛏ ᚺᛖ ᚷᛖᚺᛇᚠᛞ, ᛊᛖ ᚺᛚᚨᚠᛟᚱᛞ ᛒᛚᛖᛏᛊᛟᛞᛖ ᚦᛇᛏ iī ᚺᚢᛊ ᚠᛟᚱ יוֹסֵף שֶׁל ᛊᚨᚲᚢ; ᛊᛖᛟ ᛒᛚᛖᛏᛊᚢᛜ ᛟᚠ ᛊᛖ ᚺᛚᚨᚠᛟᚱᛞ ᚹᛇᛊ ᛟᚾ ᛖᚨᛚᛚ ᚦᛇᛏ ᚺᛖ ᚷᛖᚺᛇᚠᛞ, ᛁᚾ ᚺᚢᛊ ᚨᚾᛞ ᚠᛖᛚᛞ. ६ ᛊᚹᚨ ᚺᛖ ᛚᛇᚠᛞᛖ ᛖᚨᛚᛚ ᚦᛇᛏ ᚺᛖ ᚷᛖᚺᛇᚠᛞ ᛁᚾ יוֹסֵף שֶׁל carrus, ᚨᚾᛞ ᛒᛁcausa ᛟᚠ ᚺᛁᛗ ᚺᛖ ᚷᛖᚺᛇᚠᛞ ᚾᚨᚾ concernere ᚨᛒᚢᛏᚨᚾ ᚨᚾᛁᚦᛁᛜ ᛒᚢᛏᚨᚾ ᛊᛖ ᚠᛟᛞᚨ ᚺᛖ ᛇᛏ.

References​

Ager, Simon (2019). "Ancient Egyptian Scripts." "Hebrew." "Runic Alphabet." Omniglot. Retrieved from http://www.omniglot.com.

Dennis, L., et al., Trans. (2016). "Genesis 39." Bible: English Standard Version. Retrieved from https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+39&version=ESV.

"Egypt", "Joseph", "Pharaoh", etc. (2018). Wiktionary. Retrieved from https://en.wiktionary.org.

Harper, Douglas (2019). Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.etymonline.com.

Ulmer, Rivka (2009). Egyptian Cultural Icons in Midrash. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=H...A258#v=onepage&q=p3 dj p3 r` potiphar&f=false.

 

[9 Fanged Hummingbird]

Or you could just, you know, transcribe the above text using a simple 26-letter alphabet that renders each sound as a distinct letter and makes everything easy to read and pronounce.