Secret Squirrel On Standardizing Europe To English

Secret Squirrel has seen that there has come a time,now to be exact, when Europe must standardize the language,the common language,must
have a single OFFICIAL language, and of course the only logical solution that Squirrel sees,is english, BUT ,they, of course ,all won't agree,there being 23 languages in use in Europe,BUT many are,of course, very minor in nature and use, and too highly complex to be, of course, considered for THE common language.Now, that really,logically, leaves only THREE major contenders, French,German, and,the logical one, English.
Now Mark Twain  In his essay The Awful German Language  spares no pains to prove German has horrific horrible shortcomings, complete disorder and lack of system,words far too complex and long, far too many odd umlauts and things, utterly ridiculous pronounciation etc so what with the wisdoms of Twain preceeding use, we can utterly and completely reject German, besides nobody in Europe really likes them what with the World Wars you know, so they're easily voted out. Now, what of the french. Well,Mark Twain also commented, rightly on the french language, he found it to be, as it is,"a mess of trivial sounds", and frenchman themselves, as a link between man and monkey.So that leaves us with only on logical choice,English.
Now all Europeans, and indeed those all over the world, already speak English, or a form of it,some form of it, an odd form of it, mixed with their own. English ius an easy language, but we can, for the genereral European intelect, make it much easier for them, by modifying such that even they can then speak it and
write it perfectly well, and we sahll as you shall see. Now Twain saw English as the best language, adaptable, but a bit flawed and wished to change it's rules such that it would be easier to master, and he did this, expounding on this, in his "A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling",what he suggested here follows with suitable example as provided by that great mind..........

(Directly from his work...)
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s," and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later.
Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g / j" anomali wonse and for all.

Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c," "y," and "x" - bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez - tu riplais "ch," "sh," and "th" rispektivli.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

Here we can see he was working hard at it.

There was yet another lad who worked hard at modifying the English language and suggested the necessary changes to make it more acceptable to all of the world.......

And here is the W. K. Lessing (Dolton Edwards ) piece as it appeared in the September 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine:

Meihem In Ce Klasrum
by Dolton Edwards.
Because we are still bearing some of the scars of our brief skirmish with II-B English, it is natural that we should be enchanted with

Mr. George Bernard Shaw's proposal for a simplified alphabet.

Obviously, as Mr. Shaw points out, English spelling is in much need of a general overhauling and streamlining. However, our resistance to any changes requiring a large expenditure of mental effort in the near future would cause us to view with some apprehension the possibility of some day receiving a morning paper printed in - to us - Greek.

Our own plan would achieve the same end as the legislation proposed by Mr. Shaw, but in a less shocking manner, as it consists merely of an acceleration of the normal processes by which the language is continually modernized.

As a catalytic agent, we would suggest that a "National Easy Language Week" be proclaimed, which the President would inaugurate, outlining some short cut to concentrate on during the week, and to be adopted during the ensuing year. All school children would be given a holiday, the lost time being the equivalent of that gained by the spelling short cut.

In 1946, for example, we would urge the elimination of the soft "c," for which we would substitute "s." Sertainly, such an improvement would be selebrated in all sivic-minded sircles as being suffisiently worth the trouble, and students in all sities in the land would be reseptive toward any change eliminating the nesessity of learning the differense between the two letters.

In 1947, sinse only the hard "c" would be left, it would be possible to substitute "k" for it, both letters being pronounsed identikally. Imagine how greatly only two years of this prosess would klarify the konfusion in the minds of students. Already we would have eliminated an entire letter from the alphabet. Typewriters and linotypes kould all be built with one less letter, and all the manpower and materials previously devoted to making "c's" kould be turned toward raising the national standard of living.

In the fase of so many notable improvements, it is easy to foresee that by 1948, "National Easy Language Week" would be a pronounsed sukses. All skhool tshildren would be looking forward with konsiderable exsitement to the holiday, and in a blaze of national publisity it would be announsed that the double konsonant "ph" no longer existed, and that the sound would henseforth be written with "f " in all
words. This would make sutsh words as "fonograf" twenty persent shorter in print.

By 1949, publik interest in a fonetik alfabet kan be expekted to have inkreased to the point where a more radikal step forward kan be taken without fear of undue kritisism. We would therefore urge the elimination at that time of al unesesary double leters, whitsh, although quite harmles, have always ben a nuisanse in the language and a desided deterent to akurate speling. Try it yourself in the next leter you write, and se if both writing and reading are not fasilitated.

With so mutsh progrs already made, it might be posible in 1950 to delve further into the posibilities of fonetik speling. After due konsideration of the reseption aforded the previous steps, it should be expedient by this time to spel al difthongs fonetikaly. Most students do not realize that the long "i" and "y," as in "time" and "by," are aktualy the difthong "ai," as it is writen in "aisle," and that the long "a" in "fate" is in reality the difthong "ei" as in "rein." Although perhaps not imediately aparent, the seiving in taime and efort wil be tremendous when we leiter elimineite the sailent "e," as meide posible bai this last tsheinge.

For, as is wel known, the horible mes of "e's" apearing in our writen language is kaused prinsipaly bai the present nesesity of indekeiting whether a vowel is long or short. Therefore, in 1951 we kould simply elimineite al sailent "e's" and kontinu to read and wrait merily along as though we wer in an atomik eig of edukation.

In 1951 we would urg a greit step forward. Sins bai this taim it would hav ben four years sins anywun had usd the leter "c," we would sugest that the "National Easy Languag Wek" for 1951 be devoted to substitution of "c" for "Th." To be sur it would be som taim befor peopl would bekom akustomd to reading ceir newspapers and buks wic sutsh sentenses in cem as "Ceodor caught he had cre cousand cistls
crust crough ce cik of his cumb."

In ce seim maner, bai meiking eatsh leter hav its own sound and cat sound only, we kould shorten ce languag stil mor. In 1952 we would eliminait ce "y"; cen in 1953 we kould us ce leter to indekeit ce "sh" sound, cerbai klarifaiing words laik yugar and yur, as wel as redusing bai wun mor leter al words laik "yut," "yor," and so forc. Cink, cen, of al ce benefits to be geined bai ce distinktion whitsh wil cen be meid between words laik:

    Tradspel
    ocean
    machine
    racial     Drem
    oyean
    Mayin
    reyial     ENglis
    oSan
    maSEn
    rasal     Spanglish
    óshan
    machien
    réshal

Al sutsh divers weis of wraiting wun sound would no longer exist, and whenever wun keim akros a "y" sound he would know exaktli what to wrait.

Kontinuing cis proses, ier after ier, we would eventuali hav a reali sensibl writen langug. By 1975, wi ventyur tu sei, cer wud bi no mor uv ces teribli trublsum difikultis, wic no tu leters usd to indikeit ce seim nois, and laikwais no tui noises riten wic ce seim leter. Even Mr. Yaw, wi beliv, wud be hapi in ce noleg cat his drims fainali keim tru.

    Reprinted from Astounding Science Fiction, Street and Smith Publications, Inc. (now Analog Science Fiction and Fact ). 1946.

Ah we can see the great minds at work here, great minds thinking alike, minds very much the almost equal to that of Secret Squirrel,but not quite mind.

Ben Franklin(in England mostly noted for his membership in The Naughty Hellfire Club,and also being regarded as the biggest traitor to England) also saw flaws in English and suggested changes to it as well.Benjamin Franklin's phonetic alphabet was Benjamin Franklin's proposal for a spelling reform of the English language. It used many of the same letters, but changed some of them and what sounds they
represented. It was one of the earliest proposed spelling reforms to the English language.

So we can see that English is changeable,adaptable, and will still be english for all of us, and so then we must adapt them in to our language by adapting thelanguage in totheir language,and so by means of syncretism, adapt them in to our language and absrob them in to our proper language by changing our adaptable and ever changing language to include and absorb them properlyto assimilate them, in to it so that they see the light and embrace English as the language, the sole language, the official language of Europe. Ah, yes, but how to do that? Well, we can do that, it can be done, all by proper tried and true scintific m,ethod, embracing and using the ever adapting,inclusive and changing nature of the English language itself......to quote the Borg, "They shall be assimilated.".More than
300m use English as their first foreign language and half of these regard themselves as fluent.English has become Europe's second language of choice with two thirds of people in the continent able to speak it, according to a survey.A logical choice for THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE,of Europe, ans yes, of the world,indeed.English is already Europe's lingua franca and it's time for politicians and educators of Europe to realize and acknowledge that fact.English began its development in Great Britain and was spread across the globe through the Commonwealth nations. It became so influential across the Commonwealth that countries adopted English above and beyond their own languages.
Back to the case of India; with more than 22,000 languages and dialects it is perhaps clear why English became so popular and unifying. However, Hindi, being the most widely spoken language in India, never became the national language. Linguistic experts point out that the speed and depth with which the English language became so popular globally is unbelievable.The English language has taken
on words from many other languages and cultures, giving it its great diversity. There are mnay German, Greek, Latin and French words that have been assimilated by the English language – from avatar, bazaar, bungalow to bandanna and cummerbund.

The major reason as to why the English language is so popular is down to its simplicity and flexibility.English must become the single official language of the European Parliament, defeating its many diplomatic resisters,the 23 other languages of Europe.but how?

Well.........

The main feature of the English language that has made is so popular globally, is the language's adaptability.

What does adaptability mean?Well....change.........ability to include, such as words, or adapted words, adapted phonetics,written and spoken...........evolution,ability to evolve,ability to assimilate and be assimilated,that's adaptability, that which other languages....................lack.

Now we must change English such that it incorporates some elements of all the languges of the world, mixed in as spoken by all those others of the world, and believe you me it can be done, it IS slowly being done as exampled by such English language versions as Ebonics, Spanglish etc etc etc.Not to overhaul english would be linguistic racism..........this is an organized set of attitude,sideas,and practices that deny a racialized group those who do not speak engish as such,the
dignity,opportunities,freedoms and rewards that speaking english properly does, face it they all speak it differently and so then if english is to be the base language of europe it must adapt and make itself flexible and understandable to all, nicht wahr, as it were, or och eye as it is not.,this means speakers and hearers share access to understandings of the pronounciation of the words of the modified,improved,more socially and politically correct version of english to be used by all,whilst acknowledging the inferiority of their own rejected language.This adaptation allows for the leakage of the presumed pronounciation features of their forms of english in to english thus subordinating their language of pronounciation to the proper english.thus their way of pronounciation will be radially subordinate to the correct and proper standard of english.Not to overhaul english would be linguistic racism..........we must, nay,we are forced to, for no to creates a
 set of attitudes,ideas,and practices that deny a racialized group those who do not speak english as such,the dignity,opportunities,freedoms and rewards that speaking english properly does, face it they all speak it differently and so then if english is to be the base language of europe it must adapt and make itself flexible and understandable to all, nicht wahr, as it were, or och eye as it is not,this means speakers and hearers share access to understandings of the pronounciation of the words of the modified,improved,more socially and politically correct version of engloish to be used by all,whilst acknowledging the inferiority of
their own rejected language.This adaptation allows for the leakage of the presumed pronounciation features of their forms of english in to english thus subordinating their language of pronounciation to the proper english....thus their way of pronounciation will be radially subordinate to the correct and proper standard of english,but we shall adapt such that they shall be able to properly pronounce
and utilize the English language to the fullest.

Now changes we shall make will be implimented in gradual stages such that each and evry individual of every other language speaking nation is accomodated, as we ourselves are and shall be....now....

In the first year, 's' will replace the soft 'c'. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard 'c' will be dropped in favour of the 'k'. This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome 'ph' will be replased with the 'f '. This will make words like 'fotograf ' 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expected to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkorage the removal of double leters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent 'e' in the languag is disgraseful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing 'th' with 'z' and 'w' with 'v' to beter align the modified language with the kapabilities of the Euro speaker.

During ze fifz yer ze unesesary 'o' kan be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou' and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After ziz fifz yer ve vil hav a rali sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor truble or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

Ze drem vil finali kum tru! Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

But there is still something that plagues me over this though...........it does sound an awful lot like,and spell an awful lot like,some kind of kraut dialect you know.

Secret Squirrel,
MRL,MP,(Duny On The Wold),
Minister For Re-Deranged Re-Engineering.