User:AtterCleanser44

Pages I have worked on:

Language

 * Prefixes and Suffixes
 * Subjunctive mood
 * Irregular verbs
 * Strong verbs
 * Weak verbs
 * Thou
 * Reconstructed strong verbs
 * Pronominal adverbs
 * Archaic grammar
 * Umlaut
 * Ablaut derivatives
 * Old Norse Words

Tales

 * The Nightingale

Spelling reform
Spelling reform is a popular topic among Anglishers, and I am of the opinion that a spelling reform ought to be done in stages. This has two advantages: first, it gradually makes people accustomed to a new spelling system, and second, it removes confusion that reforming orthography all at once might introduce. This is inspired by Spelling Reform 1, which was thought up by Harry Lindgren.

Note: as I am an American speaker, I have made this spelling reform with American pronunciation in mind, but much of this should be applicable to other standard dialects.

The main goals are:


 * 1) A more consistent correspondence between phonemes and their written form.
 * 2) The main change here is by writing the "long" vowels with letters actually showing their diphthongal values rather than magic e.
 * 3) This also means that vowel spellings representing historical pronunciations have mostly been removed, e.g., see and sea are both spelled si.
 * 4) This is not a fully unambiguous system since there are still a few heteronyms and heterographs, e.g., pull and pool > pul, /naɪt/ > nait and knait. But on the whole, there is far more consistency.
 * 5) Retention of familiarity to speakers for the purpose of making it easier to become accustomed to.
 * 6) The use of double consonants is extended.
 * 7) Silent initial consonants are kept, e.g., kn, gn, wr.
 * 8) No new diacritics and no new letters are used.
 * 9) Since this is also for Anglish, most conventions of foreign origin are done away with, e.g, ch for /tʃ/, gu for /g/.

The following are the changes for the vowels. They can be split into two groups: the "short" group and the "long" group. In the short group:


 * 1) The consonant after the vowel is always doubled, even in final position, e.g., bed > bedd, bin > binn.
 * 2) If the vowel is followed by a consonant cluster, the first consonant in the cluster is doubled, e.g., hint > hinnt, think > thinnk.
 * 3) For words with the vowel in final position, two hs are used, e.g., heh > hehh, duh > duhh.
 * 4) If the consonant is k, the doubled consonant is ck instead of kk, e.g., stick, neck.

In the long group, on the other hand, there is no doubling of consonants. Note that all digraphs for diphthongs are part of the long group.

The following changes are made in order, and the short group is introduced before the long group. The consonant changes can be introduced gradually alongside them.

Short group:
 * 1) /ɛ/ is shown with short e, e.g., bury > berry, heifer > heffer, dead > dedd, friend > frennd.
 * 2) /ɪ/ is shown with short i, e.g., build > billd, busy > bizzy, sin > sinn.
 * 3) /ʌ/ is shown with short u, e.g., wonder > wunnder, stud > studd, flood > fludd, southern > sutthern.
 * 4) /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ are shown with short o, e.g., wander > wonnder, rot > rott, taught > tott, small > smoll.
 * 5) /æ/ is shown with short a, e.g., fan > fann, glad > gladd, rat > ratt.

Long group:
 * 1) /eɪ/ is shown with ei, e.g., play > plei, slain > slein, gray/grey > grei, came > keim.
 * 2) /aɪ/ is shown with ai, e.g., fly > flai, high > hai, time > taim.
 * 3) /aʊ/ is shown with au, e.g., now > nau, house > haus, out > aut.
 * 4) /oʊ/ is shown with ou, e.g., know > knou, loaf > louf, hope > houp.
 * 5) /u/ and /ʊ/ are shown with long u, e.g., moon > mun, true > tru, new > nu, good > gud, cook > cuk.
 * 6) /i/ is shown with long i, e.g., flee > fli, team > tim.

Schwa and vowels before r:


 * 1) /ə/ is shown with e and never causes any doubling of consonants in unstressed syllables, e.g., higher > haier, cupboard > cubberd, breakfast > breckfest.
 * 2) /ɛr/ is shown with er, and the r is doubled, e.g., bear > berr, hair > herr, marrow > merrou.
 * 3) /ɪr/ is shown with ir, and the r is doubled, e.g., near > nirr, sear > sirr.
 * 4) /ɑr/ is shown with ar, and the r is doubled, e.g., star > starr, barn > barrn, sorrow > sarrou.
 * 5) /ər/ is shown with ur, and the r is doubled, e.g., bird > burrd, word > wurrd, thorough > thurrou.
 * 6) /ɔr/ is shown with or, and the r is not doubled, e.g., bore > bor, door > dor.
 * 7) /ʊr/ is shown with ur, and the r is not doubled, e.g., moor > mur.
 * 8) /aɪr/ is shown with air, and the r is not doubled, e.g., fire > fair, tire > tair.

Consonant changes:


 * 1) wh for /ʍ/ or /w/ is replaced with hw, e.g., wheel > hwil, whit > hwitt, whine > hwain.
 * 2) Silent non-initial consonants are eliminated, e.g., dumb > dumm, climb > klaim, listen > lissen.
 * 3) An exception to this is /ŋ/, which is shown with ng (n before k), e.g., sing > sinng, sink > sinnk.
 * 4) /g/ is shown with g, e.g., guest > gesst, guild > gilld.
 * 5) /dʒ/ is shown with cg, e.g., singe > sinncg, edge > eccg.
 * 6) /j/ is shown with i (replaced with y word-initially), e.g., few > fiu, yew > yu.
 * 7) /k/ is shown with k, e.g., cat > katt, cup > kupp.
 * 8) /tʃ/ is shown with c, e.g., chin > cinn, cheap > cip, choke > couk.
 * 9) /sk/ is shown with sk, e.g., school > skul, scone > skoun.
 * 10) /ʃ/ is shown with sc, e.g., ship  > scipp, shut > scutt.
 * 11) /kw/ is shown with kw, e.g., queen > kwin, quick > kwick.
 * 12) /əl/ is shown with el, e.g., thimble > thimmbel, brittle > brittel.
 * 13) /f/ is shown with f, e.g., laugh > laff, tough > tuff.
 * 14) /v/ is shown with v, e.g., sieve > sivv.
 * 15) /s/ is shown with s, e.g., cinder > sinnder.
 * 16) /z/ is shown with z, e.g., the verb house > hauz.
 * 17) /θ/ is shown with th, e.g., teeth > tith, cloth > klotth.
 * 18) /ð/ is shown with dh, e.g., teethe > tidh, clothe > kloudh, father > foddher.

Certain phonemes are found only in words of foreign origin. Since most Anglishers accept only certain loanwords, how would these phonemes be shown? This assumes that they are not simply replaced with native approximations.


 * 1) /ɔɪ/, as in boil. This would simply be oi.
 * 2) Initial /dʒ/, as in jar. In normal English, one would simply use j. In Anglish, one may keep the original letter, e.g., Italian generalissimo. For transliteration, one may replace it with cg, though this admittedly looks strange, e.g., Japanese judo > cgudo.
 * 3) /ʒ/, as in vision. In normal English, one would simply use zh (which is modeled on ch and sh), e.g., rouge > ruzh. In Anglish, one may simply keep the original letter, e.g., French genre, je ne sais quoi. For transliteration, to replace zh, one may use zc (modeled on Anglish c and sc).

Notes:


 * 1) Technically, there is no need to write double consonants after certain vowel letters that are only ever short. However, since simple consonants are doubled before a vowel anyway (e.g., bedding, rotted), the double consonants are kept for consistency.
 * 2) Though long u is used for both /u/ and /ʊ/, in practice, there should be few problems since there are few minimal pairs, e.g., pool > pul.
 * 3) Since /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ are shown with the same letter, this means that speakers without the cot-caught merger will have to determine which vowel o shows on a case-by-case basis. There should be few problems, however, since there are few minimal pairs, e.g., dawn > donn.
 * 4) It would be more consistent to simply use yu for /ju/ in every case. However, I find fiu to be less strange to the eye than fyu, so I have chosen to allow for this inconsistency. Note that the interjection ew is simply spelled as iu.
 * 5) v and z were hardly used in Old English, but it was not a problem, since [v] and [z] were mere allophones of /f/ and /s/. However, later on, they became their own phonemes, and so they now can contrast with their voiceless equivalents, e.g., the noun house and the verb house, which are differentiated here as haus and hauz. These letters' use grew because of French words that used these letters, but since they are quite useful to distinguish the voiced sounds, I have chosen to keep them.
 * 6) The use of dh for /ð/ is an un-Anglish change, as it has never been used in English to represent the sound. Nonetheless, since I make a distinction for /f/-/v/ and /s/-/z/, I have chosen to make a distinction between /θ/ and /ð/. Ideally, these sounds would instead be represented with the obsolete letters þ and ð, respectively, but it should be noted that in Old English, the two letters were more or less interchangable, and [ð] was a mere allophone of /θ/.
 * 7) As ch and sh are foreign and thus done away with, I have chosen to use c and sc. Since Anglish Spelling uses sc and sk for /ʃ/ and /sk/, it makes sense to use c and k for /tʃ/ and /k/.
 * 8) For now, I have chosen not to apply these rules to function words, proper nouns, and grammatical endings. Since initial /ð/ appears only in function words such as the and this, this means that initial /ð/ is always spelled as th. The following sentences are respelled thus:
 * 9) I am a man of my word > I am a mann of my wurrd.
 * 10) What did you see in the sea while fishing? > What did you si in the si while fisshing?
 * 11) He is better at writing than I thought > He is better at wraiting than I thott.
 * 12) Sam's brother cooked us three wonderful meals > Sam's bruddher kuked us thri wunnderful mils.

Pronouns
Notes:


 * Ha is from an ME dialectal variant of the feminine he from OE hēo; the variant arose as a weak form of he. I have adopted it, as its homophony with the masculine would be troublesome, and she itself is dubious in its origin. Here, ha is usually pronounced as /hɑ/.
 * All the plural forms for the third person are the native ones; the th- set is from Norse.
 * Hy is regularly gotten from the OE nominative hī.
 * Hem is from OE heom, and in fact, it survives up to this day as 'em, which was later reanalyzed as a weak form of them.
 * Hare is from an ME dialectal variant of her from OE heora; the variant itself can be traced back to OE heara. I have adopted it instead of her (the form used in Chaucer's works) to avoid homophony with the feminine her. Here, hare is usually pronounced as /hɛr/.

Verbs
In my ideal Anglish, this is how verbs are conjugated.

Abbreviations:


 * 1) ind. - indicative
 * 2) subj. - subjunctive

Archaic forms include:


 * 1) sind for the plural present ind. of be
 * 2) sie for the present subj. of be
 * 3) -en for the infinitive
 * 4) -en for the plural present and past ind. and subj.
 * 5) -eth for the plural imperative
 * 6) -end for the present participle
 * 7) y- for the past participle

Irregular verbs
For irregular verbs, I generally stick with the forms currently used. The list below is how I would change the overall state of irregular verbs, however.

Here, all verbs of foreign or unknown root are not included. This includes Norse verbs such as take and fling. Since the currently strong forms of hang were ultimately due to influence from Norse hengja, the reflexes of the native forms are used instead. The native verbs stick, dive, and saw are now regular. All strong verbs' past participles now consistently end with -en.

All new forms are in bold. Innovative forms are labeled (I) as well. If a verb is reconstructed, or a current verb has a new meaning, then it is glossed.

Many weak verbs of Class 5, lean, and clothe are now regular verbs.