Fehndrix wrote:
Don't most of our modern English words come from Latin?
Not really. English is a Germanic language at heart (though it has taken a path of its own), but with some Celtic vocabulary from the Britons, a huge Romance (i.e. Latin derived) vocabulary courtesy of the Normans, a smaller North Germanic vocabulary courtesy of the Vikings and with most scientific terms in Latin, Greek or, oddly, both together (e.g. "television"). Both Romance and Germanic languages ultimately derive from PIE, so they are related.
English does have a huge amount of nonsensical spelling and the standardisation of spelling has been somewhat random, so I'm cautiously in favour of reform (but practically it'd be a nightmare.)
It has been attempted before. Webster did it and managed to blag enough people into buying his book, which is the main reason why American English and British English use different spellings ("the standardi
zation of spelling has been somewhat random, so I'm cautiously in fav
or of reform"). He didn't do a good job, and his simplifications generally either miss the mark (as would some of the ones proposed in that article; "fruit" to "froot" loses some of the pronunciation) or don't go far enough, but the idea is a good one.
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