Zompist Bboard Again

Simplified English

1. Motivation

The goal of "Simplified" English is to explore both 1)what a detailed[0] attempt at "simplifying" English for ease of learning would have looked like an early-20th century context [1] and 2) to explore Germanic languages with more analytic morphology than English like Yiddish and Afrikaans as well as English-derived creoles and pidgins.

The setting would be a early 20th century US which underwent a successful Reconstruction and became less racist and paradoxically more imperialist IRL, one argument against annexing Mexico was the large number of nonwhites it would bring, and likewise for the Philippines IRL), and which developed a more powerful army (to keep ex-Confederates down with the side effect of turning the army into a state-in-a-state).

The army, influenced by a civic ultranationalist "Pan-Americanist" ideology that sought to expand America and assimilate everyone (at first all of North America, then the Americas and finally the entire world) into it.

Getting rid of syllabic consonants by replacing them with /əC/ sequences might be another way to simplify the phonology.

Dē Graut Bʉr wrote: ↑Sat Oct 02, 2021 1:09 pm Getting rid of syllabic consonants by replacing them with /əC/ sequences might be another way to simplify the phonology.

I will consider that.

3. Phonotactics

Given that the maximum syllable structure in Spanish is (C1 (C2)) (S1) V (S2) (C3 (C4)) where C is a consonant, S is a semivowel and word-final final consonants are /n, d, r, l, s/ and that the maximum syllable structure in French is CCCVC if liason and the word-final schwa are observed, Simplified English had to well - simplify the complex syllable structure found in English.

L = liquid, N = nasal, P = plosive, T = vcl plosive, D = voiced plosive
As follows, the rules are:
Initials:
sC(L) → eC(L)
Coda:
-D → -T
-(R/N)D→-R
other -CC→ -CCa
l + C1C2 → -lC1.C2a
r + C1C2 → -rC1.C2a

e.g <corpse> → <korpsa> /korp.sə/
or <scream> → <ekrim> /ɛ.krim/
or <jump> → <cympa> /tʃəm.pə/

Under a less racist early 20th century US society, the “Americanist” government could consider AAVE and Gullah as equal languages to base simplified English off of, e.g the preverbal aspect particles in place of -ed.