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Anglic

Anglic was developed by a Swede, R.E. Zachrisson, in 1930. It seems to have been quite influential - for example many of the ideas of Anglic spelling were incorporated in New Spelling in England in the late 1940's.

It is noteworthy that Anglic was developed by a person for whom English was a second language - Mr. Zachrisson must have been very annoyed by the inconsistencies of traditional English spelling.

Anglic spelt the long vowels consistently using the combinations 'ae' as in maet (mate); 'ee' as in meet - except in some common words such as 'be' and 'we'; 'ie' as in biet (bite); 'oe' as in boet (boat); and 'ue' as in ruel (rule). So because long vowels were always spelt differently from short vowels, the practice of using double consonants to indicate short vowels (as in 'patter') could be dispensed with.

The sound 'k' was consistently spelt 'k' as in kat (cat); the sound 's' was spelt 's' as in seeling (ceiling); and the sound 'z' was spelt 'z' as in yeerz (years) and lievz (lives) - but not in some common words such as 'is'. The sound 'th' was spelt 'dh' when it was voiced, as in whedher (whether), but was spelt 'th' when unvoiced, as in thin. However 'th' was also retained in some common words where it was voiced - as in the, that, this.

Other vowel sounds included the spelling 'or' as in for (four, for) - but 'au' as in braut (brought) and aul (all) where the 'r' sound is absent; 'eer' as in beer; 'aa' as in faadher (father) - but 'ar' as in larjer (larger) and ar (are), where there is a distinct 'r' sound (at least in American English); 'ou' as in out, our; and 'oo' as in good and shood (should).

The overall appearance of Anglic is that it is fairly drastically different from traditional spelling - especially in the representation of long vowels:

Forskor and sevn yeerz agoe our faadherz braut forth on this kontinent a nue naeshon, konseevd in liberti, and dedikaeted to the propozishon that aul men ar kreaeted eequel. Now we ar engaejd in a graet sivil wor, testing whedher that naeshon, or eni naeshon soe konseevd and soe dedikaeted, kan long enduer. We ar met on a graet batl-feeld of that wor. We hav kum to dedikaet a porshon of that feeld as a fienl resting-plaes for those who heer gaev their lievz that that naeshon miet liv. It is aultogedher fiting and proper that we shood do this.

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