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List of language reforms of English

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For centuries, many people have called for language reforms of English, which vary in approach from the radical (completely overhauling existing conventions) to the conservative (preserving most while removing irregularities).

Phonetic alphabets limited to English do not belong here. See Category:Phonetic alphabets.

Spelling reforms

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Main article: English-language spelling reform

Spelling reforms are attempts to regularize English spelling either by reducing the number of irregularities or by making it completely phonemic. This may be done using the existing basic English alphabet more uniformly (basic), by adding diacritics (diacriticized), by adding new letters (extended), by removing letters (squeezed), or by replacing it entirely (replaced). Such proposals include:

Proposals for English language spelling reforms
Name of work Date completed Creator(s) Alphabet
Ormulum c. 1150–1180 Orrm Extended
Gospel according to Saint Matthew 1550 John Cheke Diacriticized
The Opening of the Unreasonable Writing of Our Inglish Toung 1551 John Hart Extended
De recta & emendata lingvæ Anglicæ scriptione, dialogus (Correct and Improved English Writing, a Dialogue) 1568 Thomas Smith Diacriticized
Booke at Large for the Amendment of English Orthographie 1580 William Bullokar Extended
Logonomia Anglica 1619 Alexander Gill Extended
The English Grammar 1633 Charles Butler Extended
A New English Grammar 1662 James Howell Basic
Benjamin Franklin's phonetic alphabet 1768 Benjamin Franklin Extended
A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language 1806 Noah Webster Basic
A Plea for Phonetic Spelling 1848 Alexander John Ellis Extended
Deseret alphabet 1847–1854 Board of regents of the University of Deseret Replaced
SoundSpel (previously Classic New Spelling, New Spelling, World English Spelling) 1910–1986 Various Basic
Robert Bridges' Literary Alphabet 1913 Robert Bridges, David Abercrombie and Stanley Morison Extended
Handbook of Simplified Spelling 1920 Simplified Spelling Board Basic
The Global Alphabet 1944 Robert L. Owen Replaced
Unifon 1950s John Malone Extended
Regularized Inglish 1959 Axel Wijk Basic
Shavian alphabet (revised as Quikscript) 1960 (revised 1966) Ronald Kingsley Read Replaced
SR1 (Spelling Reform step 1) 1969 Harry Lindgren Basic
Interspel 1986 Valerie Yule Extended
Cut Spelling 1992 Christopher Upward Basic
SaypYu (Spell As You Pronounce Universally) 2012 Jaber George Jabbour Squeezed and extended
Simpel-Fonetik method of writing 2012 Allan Kiisk Extended
Traditional Spelling Revised (TSR) 2021 Stephen Linstead Diacriticized

Subsets

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Subsets are reforms that use a restricted wordlist and grammar. English subsets include:

Vocabulary reforms

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Vocabulary reforms seek to reform English by changing or restricting its words without changing its grammar.

References

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  1. ^ "Common Logic Controlled English". www.jfsowa.com. Retrieved 27 August 2017.
  2. ^ Kowalski, R., Dávila, J., Sartor, G. and Calejo, M., 2023. Logical English for law and education. In Prolog: The Next 50 Years (pp. 287-299). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.
  3. ^ Wasik, Szymon; Prejzendanc, Tomasz; Blazewicz, Jacek (2013). "ModeLang: A New Approach for Experts-Friendly Viral Infections Modeling". Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine. 2013 320715. doi:10.1155/2013/320715. PMC 3878415. PMID 24454531.
  4. ^ Schwitter, Rolf; Tilbrook, M (2004). "PENG: Processable ENGlish". Technical Report, Macquarie University, Australia.
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