abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzþæŋᛟчщə
I'm seeing this sort of thing show up every now and then on the web, and I suppose that means it's time for a grassroots effort to update English by backtracking some.
þ
That's thorn, and it represents 'th' in English. I've used it from time to time over the past 20 years, and always loved it and its brother, edh (ð). I'd love to see either one, or both, make more of a comeback, so I'm going to go out of my way to use them more often. Probably, I'll just settle on one of them.
æ, @
That's ash, which represents the "short a" sound, like the way we say "cat" and "hat" in the USA. Next to it is the 'at' sign, available on every English keyboard. I'd like for ash to replace "a" when it's short, but it's not æs easy to write æs just an "a". So I would fudge a bit, and use @ instead. I only wish the @ sign in this font were a bit smaller, though.
ŋ
And that is eng, invented by Alexander Gill the Elder in 1619, and used by Benjamin Franklin. I've used this baby quite consistently for 20 years, because of the -ing ending of so many of our words. In fact, I use 'dotted' eng to represent /ing/. I think it is one of the best thiŋs since sliced bread.
ᛟ
That little guy is Odal or Oþal, a Germanic rune. It stands for the long-o sound. Assuming we ever get this far, we might need a rounded version of oþal when we split the letter o into its short and long forms.
ч
щ
From Cyrillic, ч for ch, and щ for shch, but here used for just sh.
ə
@nd l@st, bət not least, ðə lettər ðey're still teaчiŋ in grade sчool -- sчwa -- щould be promᛟtəd @nd replace ðə шort u.
Anyone have other suggestions?
There's my list, for now.
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzþæŋᛟчщə
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