The English language is among the most widely-spoken languages in the world today, yet it remains among the hardest to learn. This difficulty comes not from its grammatical structure, which is quite simple, but rather its spelling conventions, or lack thereof. This inconsistency in spellings is not only a problem abroad, for foreigners trying to learn English, but also for native speakers all over the world. When an English speaker learns a new word, she has to memorize the spelling after seeing it written out, which may take weeks depending on the word's complexity. Speakers of languages like Finnish, Spanish, or Korean, which have more regular spelling conventions, can simply hear a word and know how it's spelled, or see it written out and know it's pronunciation. In 2009, about 15% of adults in the US lacked the English reading skills to function in society: a figure that hadn't changed much since the previous study in 1992. That high failure rate helps contribute to both youth and adults giving up on learning English, after struggling for years.

The English language needs a spelling reform. Even if this sounds simple, it is in fact a rather tedious challenge. Unlike French and German, there is no universal governing body for the English language. Oxford University has some control, but they are far from universal, seeing as Americans don’t spell 'color' as 'colour'. As such, the only people in control of the English language are the people who use it: the people of America and the English-speaking world. Convincing the 1.5 billion English-speakers worldwide, or even just the 360 million native speakers, is a daunting task. Force a system too fast, and too many people lose track of it. Those who benefit from the system could be outnumbered by those who find it more confusing than the old way of spelling. Drag the change out too long, and people forget that its changing, so nothing changes at all. This has been the point of failure for many earlier proposed reforms, and as such, I have settled not only on a new standard of spelling conventions, but also a method for implementing them at the right pace.

My plan will transform the English language from its current state into "Ïnglïx" (that’s how "English" would be spelled at the end of Phase 5, about 50 to 100 years from now). Ïnglïx will appear vastly different from the English we use today, as each word would be spelled almost phonetically. However the 5 Phases are meant to ease English-speakers into Ïnglïx slowly, while still beginning to make the language easier for children and non-native learners. Each phase should take about 10 to 15 years, but no less than 5 and no more than 25. The first phase, which I am starting now, will tackle all the consonants in the English language. The major changes are as follows:

- "c" is replaced with "k" or "s", unless in the digraph "ch"

- voiced (hard) "th" like in "this" is replaced with "dh", to differentiate from the unvoiced (soft) "th" like in "think"

    > If you think this would be too big of a jump in the first phase, let me know in the comments

- soft "g" is replaced with "j"

- "ng" that makes two sounds, like in "finger", becomes "n'g"; "ng" in "ding" stays as is

- "ph" is replaced with "f"

- "q" is replaced phonetically, "qu" like in "square" becoming "kw", "que" like in "picturesque" becoming "k", etc.

- "s" is replaced with "z" when it is pronounced like a "z", like in "dogs"

- "x" is replaced phonetically, "x" in "fox" becoming "ks", "x" in "xylophone" becoming "z", etc.

- "z", "s", "j", or "g" that make the "zh" sound (like "z" in "azure") are replaced with "zh"

- "ch" digraph is shortened to "c"

- "sh" digraph is shortened to "x"

- "d" and "ed" verb suffix is replaced with " 'd " (apostrophe-d)

- "sion", "tion", and "cion" are replaced with "xion" or "zhion", based on pronunciation

- silent consonants removed in all cases

    > Some cases will have vowel endings changed slightly. "ough" like in "dough" becomes "o", "ight" like in "fight" becomes "ite", "ere" like in "where" becomes "are", etc.

- silent e dropped if it changes only consonants

- double consonants removed, except those in suffixes

-certain vowels are changed (based loosely on phases 2 and 3) when two words pronounced differently would otherwise end up with the same spelling, such as "know" and "now"

    > The vowels will not be changed, or changed further, if two words pronounced the same end up with the same spelling, just because they do not have the same meaning. Pairs such as "knot" and "not", "know" and "no", and "knight" and "night" will become homonyms, spelled "not", "no", and "nite", respectively, joining other homonyms such as "band", "tire", or "kind".

This reform does not affect proper nouns, so all the Quincys, Xaviers, Gigis and Christinas out there need not worry about changing your name. If you want to change the spelling of your home city or town, you can start your own petition for that. Otherwise, though, anything that’s not the name of a person, place, or brand will be affected. Below is a link to a phase 1 translator (in progress) for your ease of use. Many words will not be changed by phase 1, so if a word is spelled the same way, it may be accurate. If it clearly breaks one of the above rules, simply let me know the word in question and I will add it to the translator as soon as I am able.

<https://lingojam.com/EnglixSpelingReform>