Aside from the vowels a e i o u (which are special) and also the pseudo-vowel y, the rest of the consonants roughly split into a few kind of groups. The -ee endings (b, c, d, etc.) is the most common, but there is also e- (like s, l), -ay (like k), a- (like r). There’s also some weird ones like q (kyu) and the worst offender is “double u” (w).
If the pronunciations of the consonants were standardised, what should be the new “standard” for pronouncing them? Should it be -ee, or something like -ay? How would the alphabet song sound?
(j/k)
Doesn’t matter. We Appalachian folk pronounce it all differently anyway. 🤣
German (my first language) is actually very phonetically consistent. Generally speaking if you know how it’s spelled you know how it’s pronounced. A lot of languages work that way, many of which use the Latin alphabet. English is a bit special being a Germanic language with a plethora of Romance loan words and almost kind of a case-by-case spelling situation. So right off the bat this idea would probably be pretty inconveniencing for non English speakers while providing little to no benefit for anyone. If you want to standardise letter pronunciation I’d probably do it similar to Turkish so “A, Bee, Cee, Dee, Fee, Gee, Hee, I, Jee, …” and so on.
-ee sounds: a (vowel) bee cee dee e (vowel) fee gee (g or j sound?) hee i (vowel) jee (could be confused with gee?) kee lee mee nee o (vowel) pee qee (kwee?) ree see tee u (vowel) vee wee xee yee zee (sorry “zed”…)
-ay sounds: a (vowel) bay cay day e (vowel) fay gay (g or j sound?) hay i (vowel) jay (could be confused with gay?) kay lay may nay o (vowel) pay qay (kway?) ray say tay u (vowel) vay way xay yay :D zay (neither “zee” nor “zed”…)
-ed sounds: a (vowel) bed ced ded e (vowel) fed ged (g or j sound?) hed i (vowel) jed (could be confused with ged?) ked led med ned o (vowel) ped qed (kwed?) red sed ted u (vowel) ved wed xed yed zed (sorry “zee”…)
aay ebe eke ede eay efe ege ehe iay eje eek ele eme ene oay epe eque ere ese ete uay eve ewe ekse yay eze
but if we’re making changes, we should really get rid of C, Y, X, and W; bring back thorn; turn all soft Gs into Js… the list goes on
It would also make more sense to divide the day into something decimal but some base twelvers showed up first. It would also make more sense to stop using measurement systems where 12 hooplas equal 1 boink. The alphabet is just another thing like that. It’s been stolen and rewritten and now we are stuck with it. You can write an alternative sound map to help new learners. But the 26 letter order is here to stay.
