Phonetics and Learning English
Why has English been one of the most difficult languages to learn for non-native speakers? Because we pronounce ‘though’ and ‘trough’ like ‘thoe’ and ‘troff’, and we pronounce ‘through’ like ‘threw’, even though it’s only a single letter different from either of the other two. While it’s easy to read it on a page and know exactly what people mean, spoken English can be harder (and sometimes intentionally vague or ambiguous), but most of the words we speak are obvious in what they imply and convey as meaning. But as technology continues to pervade many of our already-educated lives, those learning the language currently are the ones that interface with technology most, and could possibly benefit us with what they use to communicate.
The way that a teenager might text their friend or friends is ‘hey, u want 2 go 2 this thing 2nite?’, and it’s absolutely effective at conveying the meaning of ‘hey, do you want to go to this thing tonight?’, even though it’s not the same written. This is a use of a kind leetspeak (or ‘13375p34k’, or any number of other ways of spelling it), and it’s partly what could benefit those learning to speak English from a written format. The other aspect of leetspeak is that it uses the phonetics of a number or letter to convey part of or an entire word’s meaning. Many people choose to mark it off as laziness or ignorance, with people of varying levels of anger and severity making points across the Internet and social media to discourage use of this method of communication. Online, it’s fine, because most people can understand what you mean (though working with Arabic online can pose problematic due to the digital alphabet’s use of digits 0–9 to convey certain sounds). In a real-world scenario, however, it could prove not just fine, but useful and even better than traditional English.
French is criticized by some for having too many letters at the end of or in the middle of its words. As someone who has studied and spoken French for years, I can say that the longer strings of letters are to provide a specific sound when pronouncing the word or words, but will also admit that yes, it is cumbersome to remember and write sometimes (especially if the word or words are never to be spoken, like in a formal written assignment). This is exactly the way that, hypothetically, the use of aspects of leetspeak and phonetics can help to simplify the learning and reading of English. Take the following as an example, and follow the logic for as long as seems reasonable:
Put. That is the word ‘put’. The ‘p’ sound is obvious, and the ‘t’ sound it obvious. Thus, the ‘u’ sound is also obvious. ‘Put’ is simple and easy to pronounce because it doesn’t have any English ‘trickery’ to it. Would it not follow, then, that words like ‘would’, with it’s not-so-obvious pronunciation, benefit from being written ‘wud’, since ‘w’ and ‘d’ don’t have any other pronunciations, and, as seen in ‘put’, ‘u’ functions as that sound already, instead of complicating with the ‘specifics’ of the ‘o’ and ‘l’, whose presences are not entirely necessary unless spoken or written in close proximity to ‘wood’, which would also be written as ‘wud’? This can also be applied from other simple, base, example words like ‘with’, ‘no’, ‘and’, and ‘get’, with similar levels of simplicity resulting from the effort of respelling the words in an obvious way.
This leads to the more ‘complicated’ sounds, like those found in ‘out’, ‘ate’, ‘ought’. Complicated in the English sense, I should specify. With the above logic applied, they might be spelled ‘aot’, ‘eyt’, and ‘aut’. The last word, ‘aut’, is far from obvious, with the others being simple combinations and derivatives of the previous vowel sounds. But, with the consideration of many English words, it is easy to see that this would make a more readable and phonetic lexicon.
The above is not logic from a theorist, or the mental wanderings of a philosopher who has an affinity towards words, or a doctoral student considering a topic for a dissertation. The idea that a language can be rewritten is ridiculous, yes, but the possibility of a base-level language that can be used purely for educational purposes being created based on these suggested guidelines is not too far-fetched. As a proof of concept, especially given that a large aspect of the English language is understanding what someone says (like when they mispronounce a new word whose spelling misconstrues the pronunciation directly, such as ‘caught’, ‘doubt’, or ‘heinous’), I would like to offer a paragraph written with this concept at its soul.
The problem might arise in making even more complicated sounds, like the long ‘o’ in ‘you’ or ‘food’, the ‘u’ sound found in ‘what’ and ‘mud’, or even just the way that ‘I’ or ‘a’ sounds as a singular word, since they’re different than previously described, right? Every language has specifics, and this would as well. With it, ‘you’ and ‘food’ would be ‘yuu’ and ‘fuud’, instead of two ‘o’s, since the ‘u’ in ‘put’ is closer in pronunciation. Similarly, an ‘h’ would be used to soften the sound that ‘u’ makes, to take it from ‘put’ to ‘put’ (with the latter sounding like the golfing maneuver that takes place on the green: putting). The singular letters would also get a special exception, with ‘I’ and ‘a’ sounding like they do currently (this would also occur simply because there is no simple way of spelling either letterword phonetically that is obvious as to its pronunciation). The same might go for a long ‘e’ sound in ‘feet’, whose spelling would be left alone because two of the short ‘e’ sounds found in ‘get’ might logically create such a sound in this phonetic way of thinking and speaking.
This next paragraph is meant to be read aloud, because the letters and spelling will make little traditional English sense (and it will likely annoy spell check, too), so please do so, and consider what simple sense the use of aspects of leetspeak and phonetics could do for teaching English learners when utilized correctly. There will also be a ‘translation’ following the next paragraph in current, typical English for clarity’s sake.
With aull uhv that in mynd, I wud l lyk tuu put forward that this simplisity is naut perfikt, and thuh spucifik letturs and yuus cases myt very, az well az thuh praublums with egsisting wurdz huus spelingz wud naut cheynj (suhch az wurdz lyk ‘very’ and ‘very’ (with thuh latr meening a difrens buhtween tuu thingz, rathr than an amaont)). Buht, I wud lyk tuu ad that ther iz no perfikt wey tuu implement a nuu lenguuij or phuhnetik wey uhf teeching suhmwuhn haow tuu speek a mor difficult lenguij lyk Inglish. This iz juhst wun pausibilitee of menee rigarding haow tuu betr teech Inglish tuu naun-neytiv speekrz, end thuh youth aur bilding uhp ther simpl phuhnetik vocabyuularee with eech pasing dey.
With all of that in mind, I would like to put forward that this simplicity is not perfect, and the specific letters and use cases might vary, as well as the problems with existing words whose spellings would not change (such as words like ‘very’ and ‘vary’ (with the latter meaning a difference between two things rather than an amount)). But, I would like to add that there is no perfect way to implement a new language or phonetic way of teaching someone how to speak a more difficult language like English. This is just one possibility of man regarding how to better teach English to non-native speakers, and the youth are building up their phonetic vocabulary with each passing day.
