I Redesigned English
7 hours ago
- #English learning
- #linguistics
- #language design
- English has many irregularities that learners must memorize, such as irregular verbs, complex spelling, and arbitrary rules for articles and prepositions.
- World English is a redesigned version that eliminates these irregularities, making the language more regular and predictable while remaining legible as English.
- Key changes in World English include regularizing all verbs to use '-ed' for past tense, simplifying 'be' to three forms, using regular plurals, reducing articles to one, and removing do-support.
- The design prioritizes ease and clarity over nuance and idiom, aiming to show how simple English can be while still being understandable.
- The project is presented as a research effort to map English's difficulty, not as a campaign for adoption, highlighting that much of English's complexity doesn't aid communication.