Some people believe there is the need for an English language reform. The English language, like any other natural language, has many inconsistencies, irregularities and dialects.

Contents

1 Language regulation 2 Need for reform 3 Elements of reform 3.1 Spelling 3.2 Synonyms 3.3 Vocabulary 4 Reform agreement 5 Levels of possible reform 5.1 Status Quo 5.2 Complete reforms 5.3 Tentative reforms 6 See also

Language regulation

Unlike some other languages, for example French with its Académie Française, English does not have a central regulating authority. There are many different versions of the English language.

The enforcement of correct forms of English falls primarily upon newspaper editors and school teachers. Their main reference is the Oxford English Dictionary. There are other prominent dictionaries, style and grammar books also used as primary references:

• Fowler's Modern English Usage, first published 1926
• Webster's Dictionary for American English
• Canadian Oxford Dictionary

Some of these dictionaries are considered to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive: see prescription and description. They describe the many ways English is commonly used and list authorized spelling variants. They hold a key role in the standardization of spelling: if a variant spelling is not present, then it is considered to be incorrect. They generally do not attempt to make suggestions or guide the language towards an improved version.

Need for reform

Some people believe that the language has many problems that could be improved upon. Such would-be reformers often quote the difficulty native English-speaking children have learning how to spell, or the trouble people have learning English as an additional language.

Elements of reform

Here are some elements of the English language which people have identified as in need of reform:

Spelling

Spelling of words in English can be problematic. English has a very poor phonemic orthography (correspondence between how the words are written and how they are spoken). Most spelling reforms attempt to improve this correspondence. Homophones, for example, are confusing to new learners of English. Many of them are considered to be essential basic elements of English and would be difficult to reform. Examples:

• to, two and too
• for, four and fore

Polysemy is a related term.

Synonyms

Synonyms are also confusing to new learners of English. There is no problem when many words give small nuances to a certain meaning. The difficulty arises when a single word has multiple completely different meanings and are unnecessarily synonymous with other words. Examples:

• Died and expired. Died is correctly used for living creatures. Expired is also used to mean death. It should only be used for the invalidation of something after a period of time. Expired is considered by some to be an unnecessary synonym of died.
• Pretty, attractive and beautiful. Pretty is considered by some to be an unnecessary synonym of beautiful. Attractive also refers to physical properties such as magnetic attraction.

Vocabulary

English is noted for the vast size of its active vocabulary. Studies into how many active items of vocabulary a native speaker of English has have come to wildly differing conclusions, citing anything between 20,000 and 120,000. Many of these words are synonyms of one other. For this reason some attempts have been made to create simpler versions of English with restricted numbers of words, making it easier for non-native learners.

Examples of restricted vocabularies:

• Basic English created by Charles K. Ogden
• Special English created by Voice Of America

One problem with such restricted forms of the language is that native speakers of English find it difficult to reduce their speech or writing to this limited version. Students who learn Basic English are not able to follow a simple conversation between native speakers. Basic English does have a mechanism to add other words in groups of typically 50 words per subject.

Reform agreement

Deciding upon which of many possible reform choices to pursue has been the greatest obstacle of all. In the absence of a central regulating authority, reform is very difficult. The only way the language can be changed is through the adoption of some reform elements by the majority of the users.

Levels of possible reform

Status Quo

No planned changes to the existing forms of language usage. Unplanned, natural changes, are of course happening every day, otherwise English would be a dead language.

Complete reforms

Some people have suggested introducing a complete reform to the English spelling system without going through any intermediate stages. The Spelling Society , for example, has developed a simplified spelling system, SoundSpel.

Tentative reforms

Other have suggested introducing spelling reforms in stages, along the lines of the German spelling reform of 1996.

See also

• Spelling reform