“The Deseret Alphabet, a 38-Letter Writing System Developed by Mormons”

I have to admit that I’m very sympathetic to complaints about English spelling and, therefore, to calls for spelling reform.

I’m always amazed at the difficulties it can pose to non-native speakers.

I mean, really:  enough, bough (take a bow, hunt with a bow), through, cough, thought (caught? rot?)

I’ve previously mentioned Bernard Shaw’s thought experiment about a foreign speaker of English who suddenly can’t recall how to spell the word fish.  So he takes the f-sound from cough.

gh

Then he takes the i-sound from women.  (By the way, why does the sound of wo- differ between woman and women?)

Anyway . . .

gho

Now he needs the sh-sound.  So he borrows it from nation.

ghoti

“fish”

To which some ambitious type sought to add the sound of -er, for fisher.  So he took it from colonel.  Thus:

ghotiolo

“fisher”

Two of our guides, a few days back, kept talking about the “mountayns” that divide Spain from France and that stand to the north of Florence.

And why not?  After all, retain, obtain, sustain, abstain, contain, detain, plantain, restrain, maintain, and . . . mount’n?

Anyhow, faced with immigrants from various countries who needed to learn the common language of English, the early settlers of Utah attempted a reasonable orthographic reform:

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/deseret-alphabet-mormon

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