Engis (Part 1)

The Murder of Queen Elizabeth II

There are at least two problems with the English language.

1. Pronunciation: There is no deterministic relationship between words and sound
2. Grammar: It is far too complicated

In a series of articles, we will solve these problems, by inventing a new language: En-gis.

This article, is the first in the series, where we will solve the problem of English Pronunciation.

Alphabet Soup

As a preliminary step to solving pronunciation, let’s clean-up the abomination that is the English Alphabet.

The English Alphabet has two problems:

1. The letters are not in any particular order. For example, the vowels A, E, I, O, U appear all over the place
2. There are redundant letters. Why should we have a W, given that we already have a V? And what’s the use of a Q when we have a perfectly serviceable K? And don’t even get me started on X. Is that even a sound?

Hence, let’s start with putting the vowels at the beginning:

A E I O U

Next, let’s omit redundant letters: W (sounds like V), Q (sounds like K), X (sounds like nothing on earth).

Finally, let’s organize the remaining consonants in order of sound:

• Palette sounds: K G
• Hard palette sounds: C J
• Alveolar ridge sounds: T D N
• Lip sounds: P B M
• Other sounds: Y R L V S H F Z

Hence, are new 23 letter A to Z is:

A E I O U K G C J T D N P B M Y R L V S H F Z

Much better.

Vowels

Since we have only five vowels, we can have only 5 vowel sounds. Hence, let’s choose the most intuitive sounds, given the five vowel letters:

• “At”
• “Egg”
• “It”
• “Of”
• “fUll”

Let’s restrict ourselves to “short” vowel sounds, and ignore all other vowel sounds and diphthong.

Consonants

• Kit, Git
• Chat, Jack
• Tick, Dick, Nick
• Pun, Bun, Mum
• Yum, Rum, Lat, Vat, Sat, Hat, Fat, Zoo

Just as we ignore most vowel sounds, we will ignore all combinations of consonents.

And we are done.

Example: Translating words from English to Engis

Before:

Send her victorious,

Happy and glorious,

Long to reign over us,

God save the Queen!

After:

Sen he viktorius,

Hapi an gorius,

Lon to ren ove us,

God sev da Kin!

[For some reason, this sounds best in Nelson Mandela’s voice]

“Vi ar not amuz!”