Should the rest of the world follow suit?
[Ed] I originally wrote this in 2018 but never had the courage to publish it. It’s now 2025 and thanks to youtuber Rob Words I now feel like the time is right. So, here’s the original non-post from 2018.
Yesterday I watched a very interesting talk on Ted.com. The subject was ‘Should we change the way we spell?’ The presenter of the talk was a Spanish lady and she was talking about the Spanish language but I believe it to be an equally valuable question for English speakers.
Czech speakers do not have this issue to deal with as their language is very neatly put together mainly with one letter for each sound. Yes, to a non-native such as myself, sometimes the way you pronounce K and G is remarkably similar, as is T and D and as far as I can tell in some words Ř and Ž, though my wife swears it’s not. As someone learning your language (my first Slavic language) I was incredibly happy to realise (realize) that as long as I knew how to pronounce the letters correctly, I could read and speak and be understood by native Czechs. This went some way to offsetting the incredibly difficult issue of case endings (koncovky). The only exception to this rule that I have found is when the prefix ‘po’ is followed by a ‘u’ as in the word ‘používat‘.
So, what about English?
English on the other hand is a spelling nightmare as I am sure you have been aware of since you learnt your first word, probably ‘hello’. (My English born, Czech daughter naturally writes helou). So, if we English speakers were to take a leaf out of your Czech book and simplify the way we spell, we could actually take some of your letters and incorporate them into the English language.
Borrow Czech Letters
We should add the letters č and š for starters and then čoose either a c or a k to represent the Čech K sound. I would also replace the double o (oo) with ů so that zoo became zů which is how it sounds and look would be written luk as it sounds. Of course the long vowel sounds á, é and í is would also be other useful letters to borrow.
The next biggest issue that kould be rektified is to klear up when to use an S, C or Z. Many English words (especially plurals) have a Z sound but we use an S when riting (the silent w is already a casualty so, who [hů], write [rajt] and wreath [rýth] for example.). Many words starting with an S sound have a C as their first letter (ceiling). Football lovers! Chelsea is not pronounced Chelzee but Čelsí. Confusingly however Swansea is pronounced Swonzí. While I’m at it, follow this link for the correct wayz to pronounce English football team names.
G and J need some rules too. Let’s keep G as a hard G like in the word ‘garden’. Then J will only be used for James, John and Jubilee. (pronounced like a dž in Czech) So garage could become garáj.
Next, lets get rid of all the letters that are not pronounced at all. Letters like H in ‘when’, gh in ‘though’, Ls in walk, talk and stalk, would, could and should. Then there’s the B at the end of ‘comb, bomb and dumb. Ks from Knight, know and knowledge.
Regional Accents
Of course there is the issue of regional accents and dialects to take into account. For example, I’m from Yorkshire in northern England where we say luk (look), kuk (cook) and buk (book) but my Grandma who was from even farther north (Hartlepool for the geographers among you) and our bitter rivals in Lancashire would all say lůk, kůk and bůk.Also in Yorkshire, as well as other parts of Britain, it’s common to drop letters from the start of words. H is partikularly forgotten, ‘ospital, ‘orizon and ‘istory. In fakt, kum t think of i’ wi also drop t’ o from istry and ‘ t from i’ and ‘.
Šit you’d have to be gud at punktyúeyšn t ríalize wot‘s being sed.
One addition that is not present as a sound and therefore letter in Czech is the schwa (ə ). This is a must in the NEW ENGLISH ALPHABET ™: thə, fáthə, Spátə, Viktóríyə.
This iz getting ridikulus naw, wí will haf tə čeynj komputə kýbódz.
Théz anuthə thing, dubl letəz. We šud rayt geting, not getting. Weyt théz anuthə difərens, geting haz 2 Gs, a hard G and a soft almost unpronounced g at the end ahhhhh!
Sow tə sumərajz
The NEW ENGLISH APLHABET™ will consist of the existing English alphabet with a clarification of conflicting letters plus the most useful letters from the Czech alphabet plus one or two from the phonetic alphabet. Here is your NEW ENGLISH APLHABET™
a Andrea
á arse
b Bohemians
č Church
d Daddy
e Elephant
é Aeroplane
ə the
ɜ stirː
f Philip
g Gordon
h Harold
i idiot
í idiot
I I am
j John,
k Katherine
l Lafata
m Mummy
n No
o orange
ó awful
p Pepa
q Queen
r Richard
s Stephen
š shit
t tin
θ thing
ð this
u underpants
ů zoo
v Vaclav
w Willy Wonka
x xindl X
y yesterday
z Zuzana
From naw on ól komyůnikeyšən wil bí ritən yůzing thə Nyů Ingliš Aplfəbet. Ov kós itz gənə mín I haf tə čeynj thə wey I spel may naym, from naw on I wil bí nown az Ričəd.
