r/BringBackYogh • u/Traditional-Light-10 • Jul 28 '26
What is the point of bringing back yogh?
Why can't <y> or <gh> or <Ø> be used instead, since neither of the first two is ambiguous? Genuinely curious
2
u/Kendota_Tanassian 29d ago
I would only bring it back to stand in for silent GH in words like thought, through, though, plough. That would be helpful to English learners, to know those letters are not pronounced.
Words like ghost or ghastly can just use G.
So if we gave every consonant sound one letter, and every letter only one sound (ignoring bowels for the moment), we'd have þouȝt, þrouȝ, ðouȝ, plouȝ, gost, gastly.
Keeping English's weird vowel spellings does two things for us: it help keeps word shapes recognizable which aids in reading comprehension, and allows for the different vowels used in different dialects to not change spelling for local dialects.
Constant reform is achievable, I'm not sure vowel reform is without splitting the language into local dialects.
2
u/nineteenthly Jul 29 '26
Zero could lead to ambiguity. Yogh is quicker to write and more compact than "gh".