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Does the English language, or any other language for that matter provide the flexibility to add or remove new alphabets?

user191142
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2 Answers2

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Certainly.

There is no necessary connection between languages and the technology (called 'writing') which is used to represent them. Some languages have conventionally been written in several different scripts: any language can be written in any script.

Colin Fine
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  • Though, looking at the question again, I'm almost sure that what the OP meant to ask was about adding letters or characters to the alphabet. – Colin Fine May 23 '23 at 17:49
  • Though some scripts are definitely well adapted to certain languages and cumbersome for others. E.g. Chinese with its mix of logographic and phonetic information, or Arabic where vowels can be omitted because they follow from context. – Jan May 24 '23 at 00:18
  • @Jan. that claim is very weakly supported. There's noting special about Chinese that makes "its mix of logographic and phonetic information" particularly appropriate - unless you're talking about the (limited) possibility of using the same script for highly divergent topolects, in which case the script serves a political purpose, but is arguably worse for any given variety than a more phonetic script would be. Nd whl thrs sm vldt t th rgmnt bt Rbc, t's ftn wldl vrsttd. – Colin Fine May 24 '23 at 14:28
  • You seem to be misunderstanding my point. I am not saying Chinese characters or Arabic script are good fits for arbitrary languages. I am saying they are OK for Chinese and Arabic respectively, and cumbersome to impractical for other languages. E.g. the only other language that still really uses Chinese characters is Japanese, and they do it by learning the Chinese as well as the Japanese pronunciation of these characters. And Arabic writing also seems only to be used in very Arabic or very Muslim countries. – Jan May 24 '23 at 18:21
  • Oh, I see. Yes I did misunderstand your intention. – Colin Fine May 24 '23 at 18:23
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In theory, yes, in practice no.

The user base of written English is so large and dispersed that any changes to the English writing system (including even minor spelling reforms without touching the alphabet) are almost impossible to implement.

There have always been attempts to change the basis of English writing, e.g., the Shavian alphabet or the Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA), but none of them are going to take off at a larger scale.

Tristan
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Sir Cornflakes
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  • being a "victim" of ITA myself and seeing my experience in Wikipedia's Decline section, I have to agree :-) – uhoh May 21 '23 at 04:38
  • @uhoh that proposal looks insane anyway. – Anixx May 24 '23 at 17:05
  • @Anixx I remember that it was fun and friendly to learn, but perhaps the idea that we would be so fluid that we could then happily/willingly drop it the next year and transition seamlessly to a much less fun and much more unfriendly system the next year was less than tested/proven. Maybe we were unwitting experimental subjects? :-) – uhoh May 25 '23 at 00:08