How would you change written language, to make the intended pronunciation of a word unambiguous?

We could all use the Turkish alphabet Spelling idiosyncrasies add charm to a language. How dull to have only one way of getting the pronunciation you want.

It would be a tough, rough job and though we might bluff our way through, I think we’d all be coughing blood by the time it was enough.

It already has been changed through the use of text,I would think.
And pictographs like emoji is actually going back to the original way of communication.
All those caves with drawings are an example.

Korean Hangul is ideal for this!
You can make virtually any language and pronunciation map into it.

I think I’d go with using the English alphabet and have the letters only able to be pronounced one way. In Spanish the vowels are each only pronounced one way, by contrast in English vowels can be pronounced 2 or more ways. For example. Fill and file. The e at the end changes the pronunciation of the i and to top it off the e is silent. Too many rule.

Ai wüd meibi start raitihng laik dhis?

I don’t think it’s a good idea because we read words as a unit (only as a young child do you really “sound out” words); meanings of words might be obscured by changing the spelling. Spellings tend to preserve the word’s history as well. Not to mention it would be unambiguous in one dialect. So there’d still be ambiguity between say, British English and American English.

Changing the alphabet wouldn’t help! Eventually the language would transition away from the new alphabet too.
We just to go with phonetic spelling, IMO, even though it looks ignorant.

It can’t be done, in my opinion. You’re talking about trying to respell spoken language. But we have to take into account how much of speech is about trying to pronounce written language. I’m not talking about how it came to be. I’m talking about how it exists now.

First, there are so many accents and dialects, which one rules and becomes the standard? And how much of one’s native language becomes unintelligible if one’s way of speech is suddenly outlawed? It would persist underground, let’s not think it wouldn’t. Language is, if anything, more sacred and politically fraught than religion.

Second, a huge amount of meaning is in the word’s orthography (spelling), which is like its face and its biography both. A good deal more is in the context. Faced with the sound /ðer/ all by itself, how do we know what word it is? There? Their? They’re? That would be like putting a mask on the language and expecting us to guess. We’d be better off with kanji.

Phonetic spelling without a standard such as IPA would be completely useless. What good is it to say ”oo as in root” unless you know how I say “root”? There’s no natural way to spell a lot of sounds in English. How would you spell the sound of “cat” if it didn’t have the final t?

In speech, of course, we can clarify ambiguities by further discussion: “I meant ‘you’ plural when I asked if you were going with me.” In writing, we simply lose meaning.

In the end, I don’t think ambiguity in speech is nearly as serious as the risk of ambiguity in written matter. Our language would become a complete hash if we tried to adopt phonetics in place of orthography. Spelling modifications do come about over time, and I think that’s enough. Hardly anyone writes “catalogue” any more.

I took a Japanese class for a while when working for a Japanese-owned company. About half the students in the class were of Chinese origin. One day the Japanese-native instructor ran into trouble trying to explain a concept in English. Finally she went to the board and wrote a kanji character. All the Chinese members of the class went “Oh!” That’s communication .

And what exactly IS the “intended” pronunciation ,and who decides what it is? What is the intended pronunciation of “through” and “though” and “could,” for example?

@janbb, yough made me laugh.