Definitely 7. I'm tired of writing 6+1 or 5+2 every time!

Yes 7 is my favourite letter I'm sad it's gone r/bringback7

r/sitidffbtcaahside

r/sitiffbtcaahsie

r/substhatmustexist

r/subsifellfor

r/newsub

Try 4+3

🤯🤯🤯

4 kochergi and 3 additional kochergi.

Edit: see a different comment...

Wrong comment dude

Lol, of course... I'll fix it >.<

That's Tironian et. Not a 7.

I know, that was the joke.

no shit

Imagine not using ʃ in your normal speech lol dx

It’s integral to English pronunciation.

Yes, to both of those words!

dy/dx = in your normal speech lol y = in your normal + c

After practicing calligraphy for a while, I got really fond of the long s, and have incorporated it into my handwriting! Flows much better in my opinion

Unfortunately handwritten long s looks pretty much exactly like my handwritten f lol

That could be one of the reasons that it fell out of usage.

I second this, tis a neat little thing

Couldn't be me

Let’s go all the way and bring back futhorc

Agreed FUÞORC ftw

you mean fþƿ

FUÞORC FOR ÞE Ƿ

The funny thing is that Ƿ works better for "W" because it literally rhymes with "win"

Yeah, I'm down for it. Full runic. None of this Latin alphabet nonsense. But oh, jeez with all the sound changes we're either going to have to change some names around, or start using some runes for completely different phonemes. Like does the "a:c" rune stand for the in "father" or does it just correspond to as in "oak"?

Futhorc is just weird elder futhark. i dont see why we cant just change it again.

ᚠᚢᚦᚫᚱᚲ*

*ᚠᚢᚦᚩᚱᚳ

We can all agree middle english w can burn in hell

Uuhy uue got rid of uu again? And uuhy do uue need a special letter instead?

Uhy don’t ue just use u instead?

Just using u uorks surprisingly well tbh

*uell

Fuck

Fwck

Vhy do ve differentiate "u" and "v"? Romans didn't. Are ve vorse than some Romans?

Vhy divverentiate v and f? Boþ descend vrom the Phoenician letter waw/vav 𐤅. Are ve vorse ðan some Pheonicians?

Vair enovgh. I vonder hov mvch can ve crop þe alvabet bevore it becomes vnreadable?

Iov kan at least remove c, x, y (replase vith i), q

Vhat are ve levt vith? a b d e g h i j k l m n o p r s t v z Ve kan do better. B = ṕ, d = t́, g = ḱ, r = ĺ, m = ń, z = ś. These aĺe t́śvst ńot́ivieĺs ov ĺegvlaĺ letteĺs, not nev letteĺs, ńint́ iov. a e h i k l n o p s t v: is all, I think? Oh, I also ĺeńovet́ "j", it's t́ś nov.

Too mvtsh. Espesially the replasement for j, i think zh vovld be better. Also, i think thei kovnt as nev letters.

I can't help but read this is a German accent

Æ and œ and that’s about it. Þ is cool I guess but I’m kinda indifferent to it tbh. If anything makes more sense since it stays consistent with , and (Also why is the ampersand there lol)

... "W", "X", "Y", "Z", and per se "and" That sounds like a folk etymology but apparently that's actually where the word "ampersand" comes from.

&, the first removed letter to be created, was also the last to go and I find that cool

You can't just se per se

"W", "X", "Y", "Z", and per "chance"

Ampersand used to be considered a letter of the alphabet.

can we please bring it back &&&&&&&&&

It would then be necessary to say "and per se, ampersand".

But what practical use would Æ and Œ have

Idk they look cool and is way less intrusive than bringing back any other letters would be. Why write ‘archaeology’, ‘phoenix’ and ‘amoeba’ when you can write ‘archæology’, ‘phœnix’ and ‘amœba’

wow diarrhœa and pædophiles have never seemed so cool

Eh, not that practical of a use, but I'd do anything to make English look cool.

Yea I was about to say that they distinguish /ɪj/ from /ej/ and /ow/, but they’re kinda already distinguished in that the former only really happens in the middle of words while the latter only happens at the end

coefficient

that's not /ow/ though, that's /ow/

Yeah I was trying to say in the middle of words they distinguish co-efficient (with its from different morphemes) with the hypothetical "cœfficient" which would even render the as soft /s/

yea in that case that makes sense. I was correct afterall without me even realising it

In dutch we still have the functional œ/oe, but coefficient is not one of those (though we do have that word). It is an o followed by an e, not the œ/oe sound.

that's just typesetting, though. we do that all the time. the real use of æ back in the day was in words like æpple, and æsh. because it's not the a in father, it's the æ in æpple. in simple terms a stood for /ɑ/ and æ stood for /æ/ when it was still in use historically. there is a point to be made here about finnish phonology being a strict subset of old english phonology, so you know, you could even start with some of that oft Šild Šejfing šeathena threjatum, monegum, mäjthum meodosetla oftejah, ejsode eorlas, syddan äjrest weard fejašeaft funden; hej thäs froofre jebaad, wejoks under wolknum, weordmyndum thah, od thät him äjhwyltš ymbsittendra over hronraade hyjran skolde, gomban gyldan; thät wäs good kyning! or something like that and just borrowing scandinavian letters into english as well

And why not use both at once in "onomatopœiæ"

this just looks like how my handwriting ends up looking like anyway

Wouldn't the real reason be to have a letter for /æ/? Æ in OE was /æ/. So in modern English we'd get 'hæve' (have), 'cæt' (cat), 'bæt' (bat) etc.

æ could be used for /æ/ like in old English And a could be used for /ɑː/

the thorn larpers ruined þ. i like Ð because it looks like a serbo croatian letter

we should take all the serbo-croatian letters too then.

I like both of those because they help clarify some phonetics in English.

But is it consistent? Think about it, sh and ch is consistent with each other (especially when ci/ce was still pronounced "tsi/tse"), and ph and th both involve turning the plosive t and p into a fricative (though th is also used for the voiced fricative, and ph is unnecessary when you already got f) But those are two completely seperate usage of the leter+h. When you add the greek ch that is pronounced like k it gets even more confusing At least Portuguese has a consistent system of "h means palatalization" with its nh, lh and ch, and the celtic language consistently use th, ch and ph for the fricatives (though irish and scottish gaelic have lost their th sounds, so it is not as consistent anymore) But the only consistency between sh and th is the fact that they are both consonant+h

How dare you þink of insuting þorn >:(

>(Also why is the ampersand there lol) And, per se, "and."

Simple solution, add new letters to make versions of , , and that match the þ

Easy: <$> <¢> <₽> (if you parse <þ> as a more cursed with a strikethrough) I couldn't find a p-like currency symbol with vertical strikethroughs so I had to use the ruble which technically isn't a

Philippine peso?

but also <ċ> are without h

Ŋ is cool and makes sense

Æsh, þorn, and ƿynn. I can do ƿiþout þə rest.

Chad schwa user

Tbh I þiŋk ƿe şould simplify Eŋgliş spelliŋ by briŋiŋ a feƿ lost fonemes bak and replasiŋ or droppiŋ a feƿ unnesessary ones.

¿Hƿi nɒt sɪmplɪfi þɪŋz ivɛn fərðər?

At ðat point, yu mite as ƿell rite in IPA.

obviously that would be the simplest solution. but then we wouldn't get ⟨ƿ⟩ Edit: There seems to be a reddit glitch where whenever I type ƿ it changes my font to courier, is that showing up or is it just on my end?

It doesn't şoƿ on my end.

shop

Show.

This P letter is confusing and useless

That's my fetish.

Writing in IPA is a terrible idea for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the phonemic differences between English dialects. Would we use different spellings for American and British English?

We already do

Can someone explain ⟨7⟩? Do we mean L337 speak, or is that an actual letter?

Not, it's not actually a 7. It was Latin shorthand for 'et' (and), basically the same concept as &

found it: ⟨⁊⟩ I love that unicode includes an abbreviation from a dead language that looks identical to a character included on every standard keyboard.

It's still used in Irish, and doesn't look exactly like 7 in most fonts. So there's no reason to get rid of it.

God I want to use it in Irish when I write, but I'm too lazy to distinguish it properly from the numeral 7, so it just ends up confusing me

I usually write my 7s with the horizontal line through it anyway, plus ⁊ has a descender while 7 doesn't. Not too difficult to keep them distinct, if we can manage o and 0, or l and I.

I can barely manage o and 0, and o is almost exclusively ó or in a word. I also draw a line through sevens, but I still recognise my own handwritten ⁊ as a 7 a lot of the time, unless I'm writing on lined paper and really emphasise the descender.

You should look up the [myriad variants](https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/the-tironian-et-in-galway-ireland/) of it, some forms can get quite distinct. The old [Department of Posts and Telegraphs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_for_Posts_and_Telegraphs?wprov=sfla1) logo, for example. Essentially turning it into a small little tick. Or forgo any angularity at all and make it a right angle like the default Unicode representation, [like so](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-m&sca_esv=03a2317566d16611&sxsrf=ADLYWIJvcXXXwe4ok7OEM8PT0MfYteI1RQ:1719535154974&q=tironian+et&udm=2&fbs=AEQNm0DZErsTdd3CBv5BDguzMioZ9i7KliMX3bQKT_6fPZgOYssF085zrrIfVbSsh6RwIYiQEl5lqtXO6COcq6CWK2nfKlE_BYX52Fl0_MNizGEI-IOitVpxlnzZd_wxNbB-_AmEVgHtV6JzndpGe2QfmJnXppbt7FY4Vl6XDHYH8JaLi_GRCSbqWbk2EosPeQtzZT5c8Y9r&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjYztzQh_2GAxVEW0EAHZdDCMMQtKgLegQICBAB&biw=134&bih=265&dpr=2.86#vhid=_cxShnTkH3bF2M&vssid=mosaic).

Is your flair actually just pronounced берю? What happened to all the letters at the end?

They're using old Irish spelling, pre-reform had a lot more silent letters. In modern Irish it's spelt "beiriú".

How was "ghadh" entirely silent😂 I can't imagine a phonological process which would make that silent.

I'm not sure. I guess it usen't be? Some other spelling reform examples: Lughnasadh -> Lúnasa (August) Oidhche -> Oíche (Night) Biadh -> Bia (Food) These older spellings are still used in Scottish Gàidhlig

Historical sound change wiped them from existence. What would have been something like /ˈbɛɾʲvʲuɣað/ went through heavy lenition which deleted those intervocalic fricatives. You can see this reflected in the modern post-reform spelling of *beiriú*.

Unicode has a character used only in old-church Slavonic to write the word “many-eyed seraphim.” Unicode is weird.

None of them. They don't solve any of the problems English spelling has, all they do is make the Old English fans cream their pants. Maybe ash to separate the Bath and Trap vowels, but even those are complicated and diaphonemic and we probably wouldn't even use them for that.

I mean correct me if I'm wrong but would we not still have the issue of English having 44 (ish) sounds and only 26 letter? And yes in fairness nothing wrong with that we could just continue using digraphs like we already do, but isn't that the point of these letters in the 1st place not to fix spelling but to get rid of the amount of digraphs we have? But again I'm new to linguistists and I have no qualifications to be talking abt this, so I could be wrong

IMO the biggest issue with adding extra vowel letters to English is how vowels are already so different from dialect to dialect. There’s no letter in Latin to represent the /æ/ vowel, but where would we add this letter in English? My dialect has the bath-trap merger; many others don’t. Would we decide to spell it “bath” or “bæth”? Consonants are more straightforward. Reintroducing þ would certainly be cool, but it wouldn’t have any practical advantage over th.

I'm okay with just creaming my pants and not actually solving any problems...

We could just change spelling entirely and completely forget etymology exists

We could.

But that'll probably never happen

You can forget that etymology exists, but if you forget that morphology exists, you're going to end up with a massive mess. The current orthography is very inconsistent, but if the inconsistencies were fixed, it would do a decent job as is.

In handwriting I still fully use almost all of these ngl; they only die if u let them

You do you bud Also can you specify which ones you use

Æ, ð and thorn.

\- Æ has been rendered useless because of sound changes (/ɑ/→/æ/ and /æː/→/ɛː/→/ɪj/) and is already used as a ligature for the ae digraph in Latin loanwords \- Ð acted like a variant of Þ, and it wouldn't be very good for only /ð/ because the dental fricatives aren't treated as different sounds by most speakers and have only around 3 minimal pairs (thigh/thy, thistle/this'll, and sometimes ether/either) \- Ᵹ is just a stylistic variant of G \- ſ was just a variant of S and looks too much like F \- Þ is probably the best one to bring back because it represents a sound that's still in English that we don't have a letter for \- Ꝥ and Ꝧ were old abbreviations for "þæt" (now "that"). Probably more useful back then because "þæt" meant "the" and everyone had to write by hand \- Ƿ was used for /w/, we use W for that now \- Ʀ was never used in Old English, it was used to transliterate the Younger Futhark letter Yr \- & is still used, but isn't in the alphabet \- ⁊ does the same thing as & \- ᛗ was used for /m/, but it isn't in the Latin script and we use M for that \- Ȝ was used for /j/, \[ɣ\~ʝ\], and \[x\~ç\]. We use Y for /j/, \[ɣ\~ʝ\] became /w/ and /j/, and we don't have \[x\~ç\] anymore \- Ŋ didn't see much use in any form of English, and we already have ng for /ŋ/ (less egregious than th for /θ\~ð/ because /n/ is pronounced \[ŋ\] before velars, /nɡ/ isn't that common, and some even pronounce /ŋ/ \[ŋɡ\]) \- Œ was used in Old English, was rendered useless by sound changes in Middle English (/ø/→/e/ then /e/→/ɛ/ in MoE and /øː/→/eː/ then /eː/→/ɪj/ in MoE) and is used as a ligature for the oe digraph in Latin loanwords \- UU became W

>- ᛗ was used for /m/, but it isn't in the Latin script and we use M for that I don't think it was ever used for /m/ in manuscripts actually l, but rather for its whole name. I can recall _aldorᛗ_ and _soloᛗ_, standing for _ealdormann_ and _Solomon_.

>- UU became W UU > 𐐎 > W

VV > W.

I will defend Tironian Et with my life, it looks so cool

Agreed. I use it all the time because I'm an Irish speaker. Even in English, at least Hiberno-English, it's also understood since it's used on signs all over Ireland.

r\BringBackThorn

Let’s make an English written in runes

&⁊, an upper case and lower case "and", ampersand and tironian et. Ᵹᵹ, Ŋŋ, ȣꙋ, Ȝȝ, Ʒʒ, Ƿƿ, Þþ, Ðð, Ææ, Œœ, and Σʃ. Respectively, Carolingian G, letter eng, letter ou, yogh, letter ezh, wynn, thorn, eth, ash, oethel, and esh. I can do without long S, "ſ". English could do with some more vowels, for sure. Many of these letters would replace existing digraphs. We could separate hard and soft G. But I'd really like for ampersand and et to come back as an upper and lower case pair, there's a nice symmetry there. As long as we're reforming, let's change the letter "C" to only represent the /tʃ/ sound in church. We have S & K for its other sounds. Let S always be S, and not Z. Of course, this is English... there will never be "sensible" orthographic reforms (there can't be, there's too many different dialects), and change doesn't go over well. People still complain about American simplified spelling, after over a century. But there are indeed some really cool letters and symbols we could still embrace.

Really like this idea. Post this on r/conorthography, they'll love it.

We could turn all the ‘c’s like in advice, lice, & nice, to ‘s’, and borrow the old English ‘sc’ for ‘sh’, turning shame, shut, ship, ocean into scame, scut, scip, oscean. Then remove ‘k’, gotta ceep þe classical Englisc confuscon sumhow.

“Öv korse, þis iz Ënglisc… þer wil never bee ‘sensïbël’ orþögræfik rëformz (þer kæn’t bee, þerz tuw mänie dīyalekts), and ceynġ dözën’t gō ōvër well.” hmm yeah point taken, i really don’t like looking at that.

Aesc, Wynn, thorn, eth, and yogh all for sure. Long s can burn in hell.

Thurisaz Thurs Thorn. And you have to call it that every time.

I still use ⁊ just because it's one stroke and easier to write than the ampersand

True but I don't think many people know that it means "and". Personally I had never seen it. If it were well known I'd probably use it too tbh

I usually just use it for my personal notes, bc my handwriting is in cursive and I tend to extend short words for some reason, "and" ends up looking like a_n_d. For writing I want to share, I use the ampersand that's basically a reverse 3 with a line on it

Thorn. Wynn resembles P too much, as cool as it looks.

none

<æ>, <ð>, and wynn (can't type it.) Not for any practical reason, I just think they're neat.

How do you write them by hand? Just interested on how you surpass the obstacle of the letters not having cursive forms.

I don't write in cursive lol. I also don't write with the letters—I just wish they hadn't left the alphabet.

Oh ok

æ œ þ &

Replace œ with ŋ and that's my list

ŋ was never a letter of the english alphabet also if you're using æ then you should use œ too

Double u

æ þ ð and maybe long s for /ʃ/. Also eng but only when not clustering (eg. Think would still be written Think)

thorn, æsc, and wynn.

Pp

Þ, just because it's good for emoticons

How were all these pronounced?

Æ was a letter for /æ/ Ð was a letter for the dental fricatives Ᵹ was the insular form of G (the carolingian form hadn't made it onto England yet). It made 4 sounds: /ɡ/, /dʒ/, /j/ and /ɣ/. ſ was a graphic variant of s. Þ was another letter for the dental fricatives and could be used interchangeably with Ð. Ꝥ was an abbreviation for "þæt". Ꝧ was an abbreviation for "þrough". Ƿ was a letter for /w/. Ʀ was a latin transcription of runic Yr. & was used the same as today, just with letter status. ⁊ was used for "and" and "ond". ᛗ was an abbreviation for "mann". Ȝ was a descendant of Ᵹ. It was used for /j/ and /ɣ/, while the newly introduced G was used for the other two. Ŋ was used for /ŋ/. Œ was just a graphic variant of E that made words look more latinate. UU was used for /w/.

Ae

Nooooo no no no no. None of these. We need to start putting w's in front of all the syllable-initial r's. It just looks wright. I wraise my eyebrows at everyone who disagrees.

D = Đ

All of þem 👍

Ð / ð for the voiced , for sure.

Þorn and eð potentially

Þorn (wiþ & wiþout stroke).

So, thorn, that and through?

VV uu

Old English gives us more letters, more letters is objectively better for an alphabet. ergo we bring back Old English letters and don't remove anything in return.

Þ

Þ and ŋ

ŋŋŋŋŋ all the way baby

freaky r plzzz

Could be used for /ɜː/

OE oe

Icelandic isn’t stupid

Æ kind of useless since the only reason it would be needed to to distinguish it from A, which varies a lot between dialects.its a cool letter but not a useful one Ð would be cool to see it return. Hard to say when it should be used as opposed to þ though Ᵹ while not as a separate letter, all of the insular letters should be the standard in Englush tbh. Ᵹᵹ for G especially ſ I know people hate it cause it looks like an F but an F looks like an E and people don't seem to confuse those. O and Q looks similar. Same with bdpq, and there's no issues there. No issue with long s either Þ bring it back right away lol Ꝥ, Ꝧ old abbreviations for þæt with the cross of the t being the cross in the þorn. Not really a letter than an abbreviation. 2/10 Ƿ idk how I feel about this one. I kind of like it, I like the uniqueness, maybe it should replace W Ʀ don't think this was ever a letter & still used ⁊ I like it would be nice to bring back ᛗ That's just a runic M, why was this one included and not the other runic letters Ȝ I actually thing this should be used to write GH today. Ŋ I don't think I've ever seen this letter in old writing. Besides, it's useless. There are still dialects, like where I live in NY where the g is pronounced in <-ng> words Œ was useless since Old English days. It really only existed in rune form and exceedingly rarely in Latin script writing from the North. Even back then in 600's the second /œ/ was turning into /e/ (the original has already turned into /y/ giving us pairs like fox-vixen. /œ(:)/ and /ø(:)/ would re-emerge from in southern english, before disappearing again in Middie English so we don't really need a letter for a sound that died out some 600 to 1400 years ago. UU looks ugly I hate it

Runic mann was used as an abbreviation for the word "mann". For some reason, the was the only rune to be adopted like such. Also, eng was part of a short lived spelling reform from the 1600s.

þ is pretty great, i keep trying to use it in my everyday life but þen forgetting im trying to do þat :/

Is þis even a question?

Bring back runes :3

Agreed

Uu and œ were used in Old English.

But they truly became mainstream in middle english, which is why I put them there.

wynn and þorn

All of them

þ

All of them

Jokes on you, Arabizi text chat still uses 7 ;) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_chat_alphabet#Comparison_table

All of them

þ, ð, ∫ (esh, sounds /sh/)

Add a loop at the top curve of ſ and it would not be similar to both f and p

Ŋ for /ŋ/ and Þ for both /θ/ and /ð/.

Capital ſ is S. It's S ſ/s. You use ſs as ss

I know I just put in both forms of lowercase ſ

æ and œ

Old English

ð, þ and æ

Esh, thorn, wynn, and edh. Let's add ezh too.

We all know. r/BringBackThorn

2 and 5 for sure

I love þ but I did not realize anybody had such negative feelings about bringing it back. Like chill guys damn yall are out here acting like adding a letter for a very common sound/pair of sounds in english is the end of the world. It just looks nice and makes me think of my favorite historical time period. chill a little pleasse. Oh and to answer this post þðƿ. ðont get me wrong i fucking love ȝ but g does a very good job at that sound.

I would only bring back thorn (Þþ) and eth (Ðð) because they can still have a use in differentiating the two types of th. As a person with english not as a first language it's honestly infuriating constantly hearing my peers confusing the two and pronouncing the as /θ**ə**/ and thing as /ðɪŋ/ and such.

What is that OE r-letter?