Useless letters in English.

[CZAtion]

Ok, there are 3 letters in the english language (arguably 2 of them), that don't have their own unique sound.

These letters are 'C', 'X', and arguably, 'Q'.
C doesn't have any sort of unique sound, instead, it either sounds like 'S' or 'K', depending on the kontekst.

With the letter 'X', it's the same thing, eksept, the letter 'X' is only a shorthand for 'eks'. It doesn't ever sound any different.

And, finally, 'Q'. 'Q' is literally just 'kw', but, most people don't know this bekause the letter 'Q' (by itself) is not used in any words. Tekhnikally, 'Q' has more of a 'kyu' sound, but we never hear this bekause, it's only used in konjunktion with the letter 'U'; whitsh then forms the aforementioned 'kw' sound.

Honestly, some would argue that words are easier to sightread if we use these letters, but, while it kan do this, it still makes spelling harder in the long run. I mean, why do we have a letter that funktions only as a substitute? It's konfusing, and serves no real purpose.

I mean, saiense is easier to spell than 'science', right?

[Ræfóa Aldrnari]

I'm no "letter-expert" (far from it) but I think they still have some purpose. I mean, if some people saw 'saiense' maybe they would pronounce it 'say-ense'. I don't know, it's just a thought. I don't really know why they're here, but I guess they have some purpose in one way or another. Maybe from the word they originated from, whether it being from Anglish or Latin?

[CZAtion]

I'm no "letter-expert" (far from it) but I think they still have some purpose. I mean, if some people saw 'saiense' maybe they would pronounce it 'say-ense'. I don't know, it's just a thought. I don't really know why they're here, but I guess they have some purpose in one way or another. Maybe from the word they originated from, whether it being from Anglish or Latin?

The thing is, even if the words kame from different languages,they should be updated to be spelled like they sound.

And this isn't just words, these are two letters that are kompletely redundant.

And, sinse many people have brought this up, 'ch' is just a 'ts' sort of sound in English.

[Ræfóa Aldrnari]

I guess you're right. I don't really mind it, though. Personally, I find some words as looking kinda stupid, if you spell them the way they're pronounced. I don't know why, I just do. Maybe it has something to do with what I'm used to.

[Proto Triose]

I think it's more because (and here's an example you used without thinking about it, I believe) spelling "science" as saiense makes the "saiense" part far too close to the word seance, at least in how people would pronounce it. The letters, while sounding like other letters, can help to differentiate what word you're looking at, gives you queues on how to pronounce it, and helps you to understand the meaning of said word. Look at the word I just used. Ques.

"I have some Q's for you. Is a queue a line you wait in, or a prompt to tell an actor when to say his line?" Spelling the word queue as simply "Kw" as you suggest would make things a lot more confusing, especially in this day and age when people say "Q's" instead of "Questions."

Arguably, English is a very confusing and complicated language, but every letter and pronunciation has its own meaning and value. That's why English is a great language to write stories in; there are so many words you can make with 26 letters, that you can describe and deliver your point a lot easier with far fewer words. -^.^-

[Ræfóa Aldrnari]

Arguably, English is a very confusing and complicated language, but every letter and pronunciation has its own meaning and value. That's why English is a great language to write stories in; there are so many words you can make with 26 letters, that you can describe and deliver your point a lot easier with far fewer words. -^.^-

There are languages a lot more confusing *cough* a lot of people find Danish to be, but I don't since I'm a Dane *cough* Heheh
I'm not denying your point, though, I just thought I'd point it out. In my opinion, English is probably one of the easiest languages, I've ever had to learn (well, again, looking away from Danish), but every language is difficult in one way or another. English does spell their words in a funny way, that some might find to be stupid, but I don't really think too much about it. You came with some really great points, Proto

[Timmy Fox]

I disagree with this. On the surface, some letters are closer to others indeed, notably C and X, as you say but they still serve more purpose than one might think.

Without C we wouldn't have, for example, CH. Sure there is SH but those sounds are still different. Not in a massive way but consider the differences between S and Z. CK is also a thing as opposed to KK (which is used in certain more phonetic languages where the K sound actually is affected more).

As for X? If I were to say "Akses", am I saying Axes or Access? How about Xylophone?

Q? In order to even try to replave that with KO or KU we'd need to change the pronunciation rules are "Kuit" (Quit) would be pronounced "Coo-y-t" if spelled like so, almost sounding like a mispronounced "Cute" (which by the way, 'kute' would be 'coot' and not 'Q-te')

Not to mention that we are all so accustomed (akkustomed???) to the current rules of grammar, spelling and how the words 'look' as well as how other indo-european languages are built that it helps keep the letter count per word shorter as well as make these words a lot more readable and less 'weird' looking.

English isn't very much a phonetic language and relies on many rules such as grammar as well as word origins to a degree to explain how a word is to be spelled. It's not about ease of pronunciation as much as it is about encompassing a large number or words and maximizing readability.

I've even seen arguments saying that English could use even more letters. Many Germanic languages already do this with letters such as Å, Ä, Æ, Ö, Ø, Ð, ß, to name a few, Many of these correspond to sounds that are very foreign to English and even hard to pronounce for many English speakers out of the simple reason that they've never heard it before. In Swedish we use Å, Ä and Ö in addition to some other sounds like SJ which aren't at all really used in English. The letter R also is very different between languages; So much that if you would have all the different pronunciations in the same language you would probably need at least 3 different letters for just different R's.

[Salakar Crocoli]

The only letter I could think of getting rid of is C. Any use it has can be replaced be k or s. We could just say that KH sounds like CH now and get rid of it.

[Timmy Fox]

The only letter I could think of getting rid of is C. Any use it has can be replaced be k or s. We could just say that KH sounds like CH now and get rid of it.

That wouldn't work because KH is already a thing.
Khan, Ankh, Halakha, Khaddar, Khalif, Lakh etc.
How about turning it around and saying K and S is useless because C is a thing?

I still believe that C is necessary. You seem to assume that English is more of a phonetic language, something it is not. If English was a phonetic language, yes then these considerations would be more relevant but it is not and a lot of rules both in grammar and pronunciation more or less rely on each letter that make up the alphabet.

Surely you might be able to change it to work with fewer letters but, really, I doubt that would ever work very well in practice. I mean, just think about it; English is one of the most widely used languages in the world and now you're gonna try to tell everyone that the dictionary as well as the most basic rules of grammar and pronunciation will be changed and rewritten for the sole purpose of removing a couple letters someone did not like? ...

That's like banning milk because someone doesn't like it.

Also, such a change would just make words look weird and cause everything to just be harder to read.
And especially as English is an ever-expanding language. It isn't a fixed language just like most other current-day languages. The English we speak today is a lot different from the English they spoke just a couple o' decades ago, for example. Not massively so but new words are created and added constantly and therefore, as useless as some letters may seem, it is necessary to have a versatile basis to the language. These letters may seem redundant but without them there will be less possibility of expanding the language.

[Salakar Crocoli]

I think you missed the point of this thread. It is more of a thought experiment that anything that is hoing to be put into effect.    We aren't going to enforce any changes to the alphabet. We are just trying to find a single letter that we could remove from the alphabet.

[Proto Triose]

But why? To dumb the language down more than the nuclear wasteland of incoherent grunts and fart noises than it's already swiftly becoming?

[Salakar Crocoli]

It's an interesting thing to think about. I don't want to change english, but it is fun for me to think about what we could remove and keep it functioning.

[Proto Triose]

I'm reminded of this movie. I love this movie. First comedy to become a documentary.

Post Merge: April 18, 2016, 06:17:45 AMOr Scrubs.


"What are you going to do when she wakes up and can no longer use vowels?"


"That's stupid."


"Will you be saying that when she looks at you all sad and says 'pls hlp m! Cn't spk t lt knw wht hppnng!'"

[Ræfóa Aldrnari]

Okay, okay, guys. Calm down. Proto, this is just an idea they had. Crocoli, Proto is just stating his opinion.
We don't want any fights here.

[Proto Triose]

lol, fights? I'm not fighting. O.o I think someone misunderstood. That movie is hysterical - If I'm reminded of it, I'm reminded of it, and I'm happy to be. And I happen to adore that scene in Scrubs. Removing letters from the alphabet made me think of a scene with Janitor removing vowels. Very funny. -^.^-