Engis (Part 1)
The Murder of Queen Elizabeth II
There are at least two problems with the English language.
- Pronunciation: There is no deterministic relationship between words and sound
- 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:
- The letters are not in any particular order. For example, the vowels A, E, I, O, U appear all over the place
- 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]