Every once in a while I sometimes think about remaking the English writing system, as is normal I’m sure😅, and I wonder what would be the most useful revision of punctuation or phonetic.

  • Justas🇱🇹@sh.itjust.works
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    10 months ago

    Two letter phonemes are always possible.

    For example, Lithuanian has 32 letters in its alphabet, and has no x, q, or w, but has ą, ę, į, ų, ū, č, š and your aforementioned ž.

    It also has two phonemes that require two letters:

    ch to differentiate it from h, to separate hide (h sound) from removed (ch sound)

    dž to pronounce Jack and John as Džekas and Džonas, because j is pronounced as the y in yarp.

    it also as ie, au, ei and similar two vowel combos that slowly go from one sound to another.

    • Darthjaffacake@lemmy.worldOPM
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      10 months ago

      True that’s also useful, Two letters has worked fine for a lot of stuff in English (th, sh, ch) I guess zh isn’t a stretch at all for us. I’m kinda worried about vowels though since we have so many, maybe an addition like Cyrillic’s ь makes sense so non is non but known is noьn or something

      • Justas🇱🇹@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        You could either combine vowels to make new sounds or use something with diacritics like å, ä, ė or whatever is used the most.