Pinker points out that, with a phonetic spelling system, people in some parts of the U.S.A. would spell 'often' and 'orphan' the same, while the words 'career' and 'Korea' would be spelt differently depending where a person lived.
The argument that people with different dialects would have different phonetic spellings is a valid one, but not nearly as valid as is sometimes made out. In some parts of England people pronounce the word 'dance' as 'darnce'. But this is not a problem for their phonetic spelling, since this particular vowel is always pronounced that way. So the letter used to represent that sound would consistently represent a sound different from that used in - say - Australia. So the fact that people with different dialects pronounce things differently is not an argument against spelling phonetically.
Perhaps for a very few words in a few localities in the world the phonetic spelling may need to be adjusted to align with the pronunciation used in the rest of the world. In the dictionary of 10,000 words included in this web site there appears to be very few, if any words this would apply to. At any rate the situation would be a vast improvement on the present system where the sound of a great number of words gives a student little indication of how the word is spelt.
With communication around the world improving every day, it is clear that in a hundred years'
time the differences in pronunciation of English will be greatly reduced. Even now in Australia one
can hear young people speaking a mixture of Australian English and North American English.
Because this will lead to more understanding between countries it is a trend to be encouraged. The
development of a world standard of English phonetic spelling should be a valuable tool in progress
towards a "Universal World English".
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