Culture: Language: Spelling
Single vowel English   (+8, -6)  [vote for, against]
Easier to talk, easier to spell.

Some people seem to struggle with written and spoken English, I know I do at times. So to remedy this a new dictionary is drafted containing only one vowel.

I think 'O' is the perfect candidate; it's circular nature denotes it as _the_ global vowel.

Granted there would be grounds for misenterpretation, but this just adds cornflour to the thin gruel of life. And it is no more silly than the way some people write; even on the 1/2B.

O thonk thos odoo os o wonnor!
-- Spidergoat, Jun 06 2001

A tribute to Victor Borge http://www.kor.dk/borge/borge.htm
Lots more stuff too. [Spidergoat, Jun 06 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Good one, [Spodorgoot], but I don't need any more cornfloor on my lofo, thank you.
-- angel, Jun 06 2001


Osofol onpot thoro Woogsqooke; O thonk yoo hovo o volod poont.

'A' cartaanly mada ma laff tha mast! And was caancadantally tha aasaast ta andarstand...
-- Spidergoat, Jun 06 2001


No... don't loko ot. Con't stond tho thooght of goong throogh lofo collod Sorrobon. So go fosh.
-- sirrobin, Jun 06 2001


Putting "A" in makes it sound just like my Northern Irish accent!!

Vary antarastang! haha!

~Cafaand wha as naw hara whi is niw hiri who os now horo whu us nuw huru whe es new here
-- Caffiend, Jun 06 2001


prfr th d f rmvng ll vwls frm th nglsh lngg. My nm wld b lx thn
-- -alx, Jun 06 2001


waugsqueke ;ee language sounds like a scouse accent
-- technobadger, Jun 06 2001


W» n»t j»st »s » n»l c»r»ct»r f»r th» v»l? Th»n th» sp»k»r c»d »s wh»t»v»r v»l sh» w»nts. >>t m»t b» » g»d »d» t» d»s»mb»g»»t s»m »f th» c»ns»n»nts »nd s»mpl»f» sp»ll»ngs, th». (H»pf»l» » c»r»ct»r c»d b» f»nd th»t »s »s»»r t» r»d th»n "»"...)

R y cd jst frg vls ltgthr, th tht lks dstrbngl lk yr tpcl Mrc Nln cht rm.

[Why not just use a null character for the vowel? Then the speaker could use whatever vowel she wants. It might be a good idea to disambiguate some of the consonants and simplify spellings, though. (Hopefully a character could be found that is easier to read than "»"...)

Or you could just forego vowels altogether, though that looks disturbingly like your typical America Online chat room.]
-- bookworm, Jun 06 2001, last modified Jun 10 2001


That looks like Welsh, bookworm. Iechyd da.
-- lewisgirl, Jun 08 2001


Can we have a rule: when posting in non standard English you must suply a translation. I cant be bothered to strugle through most of this one. It is funny though. Maybe we could streamline the consonants as well. The proposed alphabet:- E, S, T, R, N, G, Q, D, P, X Down to 10 convenient letters.
-- RobertKidney, Jun 10 2001


E tred te neq et ese eneg te send et, pet e'rr edd e trensresen. Pe te ee, eet ned e xes tes perteqerer retters? Es ee ne es netest sren tes ennetesen, eer nesseng e ret es senenes.

[I tried to make it easy enough to sound out, but I'll add a translation. By the way, what made you choose those particular letters? As you may have noticed from this annotation, you're missing a lot of phonemes.]
-- bookworm, Jun 10 2001


Actualy I picked them at random. Feel free to sugest alternatives.
-- RobertKidney, Jun 11 2001


Given that the information conveyed by a character is a function of its predicted-ness, and that the commonest letters in English are E T A O N R I S H, why not just remove them?
Gv fm cvyd by cc fuc f pdcd, d cmm l G , wy ju mv m?
Oh, that's why.
-- angel, Jun 11 2001


I'd pick E (generic vowel), T(D), P(B), K(G), S(Z), F(V), H, N, M, R/L. Or possibly get rid of E and split R and L. That's the best coverage I can come up with.
-- bookworm, Jun 11 2001


1. Classic Arabic is an example of the many languages, ancient and modern, that get/got along quite well without separate letter vowels in their alphabet, e.g. by using dots as part of an affected consonant.

Try .s.ng . d.t f.r . v.w.l t. s.. h.w .t w.rks .n :ngl.sh- [Colon means a capital. Hyphen means period.]

2. Speakers of English, in my country at least, have got there first.

They replace all vowels wherever possible, with an indeterminate "uh" sound, as in "Uh thuhnk Uhl guht suhme fuhsh uhnd chuhps".
-- rayfo, Jun 12 2001


RobertK If were going with 10 at random, how about numbers. 116 768 09878 75 734 8 9 00 098345 0 98 45 17656 36 2 656. And I mean that most sincerely!
-- Ivy, Jun 12 2001


Rayfo: your Dotty English reminds me of Victor Borge's Phonetic Punctuation. Very funny piece, see link.
-- Spidergoat, Jun 12 2001


O don't loko ot. Mo nomo woold bo "Joloo." Foshbono for yoo.
-- Galileo, Nov 11 2001


The only vowel is an 'o'. Check.

Let's make 'l' the only consonant. Check.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO!!!!

(next on list: make '!' the only punctuation!)
-- flicken, Apr 12 2003


[Spidergoat] You proposal of ‘O’ as the perfect candidate for the single vowel is perfectly consonant with the thinking of E. A. Poe...

Poe, writing of his choice of the word “nevermore” in The Raven, (and being in a somewhat pompous mood), said that “such a close, to have force, must be sonorous and susceptible of protracted emphasis, admitted no doubt, and these considerations inevitably led me to the long o as the most sonorous vowel...”
-- pluterday, Apr 12 2003


I thought this was going to be proper single vowel English. Even easier to spell and surprisingly expressive. Oooo? ooOOOooo!
-- dustmonkey, Apr 14 2003


n[a|e|i|o|u]t b[a|e|i|o|u]d
-- thumbwax, Apr 14 2003


I'd like to see each sentence terminated with an automatically generated error-correction-code so that embedded spelling errors can be fixed upon reading without fault being attributed to the writer. EE30 23F3 21DF
-- Prof Manitou, Apr 14 2003


I think this niids i innititiin ti brin it ip igiin
-- DesertFox, Nov 25 2004


Oo ooften spook look thoos whoon oom boored. (I often speak like this when I'm bored - it annoys my son and amuses me). Never even considered that it was an 'idea' that could be posted. Croosoont.
-- wagster, Nov 25 2004



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