A Simplified Alphabet

(This article, written during the autumn of 1899, was about
the last writing done by Mark Twain on any impersonal subject.)

I have had a kindly feeling, a friendly feeling, a cousinly
feeling toward Simplified Spelling, from the beginning of the
movement three years ago, but nothing more inflamed than that.
It seemed to me to merely propose to substitute one inadequacy
for another; a sort of patching and plugging poor old dental
relics with cement and gold and porcelain paste; what was really
needed was a new set of teeth. That is to say, a new ALPHABET.

The heart of our trouble is with our foolish alphabet. It
doesn't know how to spell, and can't be taught. In this it is
like all other alphabets except one--the phonographic. This is
the only competent alphabet in the world. It can spell and
correctly pronounce any word in our language.

That admirable alphabet, that brilliant alphabet, that
inspired alphabet, can be learned in an hour or two. In a week
the student can learn to write it with some little facility, and
to read it with considerable ease. I know, for I saw it tried in
a public school in Nevada forty-five years ago, and was so
impressed by the incident that it has remained in my memory ever
since.

I wish we could adopt it in place of our present written
(and printed) character. I mean SIMPLY the alphabet; simply the
consonants and the vowels--I don't mean any REDUCTIONS or
abbreviations of them, such as the shorthand writer uses in order
to get compression and speed. No, I would SPELL EVERY WORD OUT.

I will insert the alphabet here as I find it in Burnz's
PHONIC SHORTHAND. [Figure 1] It is arranged on the basis of
Isaac Pitman's PHONOGRAPHY. Isaac Pitman was the originator and
father of scientific phonography. It is used throughout the
globe. It was a memorable invention. He made it public seventy-
three years ago. The firm of Isaac Pitman & Sons, New York,
still exists, and they continue the master's work.

What should we gain?

First of all, we could spell DEFINITELY--and correctly--any
word you please, just by the SOUND of it. We can't do that with
our present alphabet. For instance, take a simple, every-day
word PHTHISIS. If we tried to spell it by the sound of it, we
should make it TYSIS, and be laughed at by every educated person.

Secondly, we should gain in REDUCTION OF LABOR in writing.

Simplified Spelling makes valuable reductions in the case of
several hundred words, but the new spelling must be LEARNED. You
can't spell them by the sound; you must get them out of the book.

But even if we knew the simplified form for every word in
the language, the phonographic alphabet would still beat the
Simplified Speller