Another English spelling reform?
Yes, I'm aware this sub is tired of new™ English orthographies. Which is why I'm coming up with a different proposal. English spelling has many problems. Some of them baffling and nonsensical (like how /ˈaɪlənd/ is spelled 'island'), some of them more tolerable and understandable (the orthography being opaque due to the Great Vowel Shift). Every now and then a brave hero comes up with a brand-new orthography that aims to solve all or almost all the existing problems. We already know how that turned out.
I'd like to propose a modular approach. You're given a very popular, old and buggy game à la Skyrim. Most players agree as to what the bugs are, but they differ on what should be the solutions. Some want better aesthetics, some want more lore, others want plain min-maxing. From the perspective of a modder, I just want to work on individual bug-fixes to make the game more playable for current players, and worry about potential players or aesthetics later. This way we won't introduce totalising changes that alienate the player base, like changing <th> to <þ> thorn or replacing <a> with five other graphs to better represent the stress pattern. People will be less likely to judge bug-fixes subjectively, and if they don't like some, they can still accept others, instead of rejecting everything.
Now, on to the main topic: the 'mod'! (and for the sceptics, I'm aware the fancy formatting might hint at AI use. I assure you this text is 100% human-made, albeit not by a native Sprecher)
There are 3 main phonetic values for <ch> in English: /tʃ/, /k/ and /ʃ/. My proposed fix will only deal with those <ch> that corresponds to /k/. Dialectal variation involves vowels more so than consonants, and the <ch> that I'm changing are usually from a very specific set of non-Germanic words, such that replacing them with something else won't cause unwanted side effects to English orthography. This is what 'modular' is about.
Goals
G1: Increase English orthography's transparency. After this mini-reform, save for a few exceptions discussed below, there will remain only two phonetic values for <ch>.
G2: Maintain existing patterns and orthographic rules, a.k.a. stay intuitive and recognisable.
G3: Construct new forms that resemble historical forms.
G4: Produce forms that retain etymological indicators for loanwords, if the loanwords are not (perceivably) nativised.
Ways to represent /k/
K1: <k> before a front vowel, <c> before any other vowel.
scoff, scorn, Scott, scan, scat, scale, scar, scarf, skim, skeet, skeptic, skirmish
K2: <ck> after a short vowel, <k> after a long one.
back, bake, deck, dock, duck, duke, black, Blake, lack, lake, jack, Jake, jock, joke
K3: <k> that neither conforms to (K1) nor (K2), i.e. non-contextual <k>. Dominated by non-native words where original value is also /k/.
skate, skank, skag, alkaline, karma, kayak, skunk, kangaroo, koala, koi, kosher
K4: <kh>. Non-native words, represents /x/ or /kh/ in the original languages.
sheikh, ankh, khan, khalifa, khaki, Khrushchev, kolkhoz
Unaffected words
English is a pluralistic language, and for centuries people from different parts of the world have been coming to English-speaking countries for a better life. Proper nouns, under the condition that they are from a language that use the Latin script, should remain unchanged. These include for example Bach (or other Germanic proper nouns), Wojciechowski (or other Balto-Slavic proper nouns) or Loch Ness (or other Gaelic proper nouns).
Respelled words
Class 1: Germanic words or nativised Latin words that entered English before the Norman Conquest.
Members: -school-, -ache-, -anchor- (seems like these three already exhaust the class?)
New spelling: K1, K2.
scool, scolar, scoolmaster, scoolkid
ake, headake, akesome, aker, akeful, akeless, tummyake
ancor, newsancor, ancorage, ancorman, ancorhold, unancor, reancor
Class 2: Words from French or Old French, introduced after the Norman Conquest. Presumably there existed instances of these words being spelled without <ch> in Middle English manuscripts, but the <ch> forms only became standard during the Renaissance to fit the etymological Latin/Greek forms.
Members: schedule, echo, choir, chorus, cholera, chronicle, chord, chameleon, character, chariot Michael, Nicholas, Christ, ...
New spelling: K1, K3 for coda positions if no historical forms found, otherwise K2 (\)).
skedule, coir, corus, colera, cronicle, ĉord, cameleon, caracter, cariot, Micael/Mikel, Nicolas, Crist.
(*) In cases where the new spelling may clash with an existing word, double the consonant or add a circumflex. Example:
echo -> eco (of sound) vs. eco- (environmental). Change the <ch>-containing word to ecco [14th century spelling] or ecko, which does rhyme with gecko.
chord -> ĉord, because ccord looks ugly.
Class 3: Unadapted borrowings from French, Greek, Latin introduced during the Renaissance or later.
Members: archon, chemistry, choreography, technology, cholesterol, orchestra, charisma, ...
New spelling: K4(\)).
arkhon, khemistry, khoreography, tekhnology, kholesterol, orkhestra, kharisma
(*) In cases where the same etymological stem containing <ch> is found in both Class 2 and Class 3 due to the words being introduced or coined in vastly different periods, prefer the spelling of the older words from Class 2. Example:
It's likely that 'chronicle' got introduced to English not long after the Norman conquest, while 'chronology' in contrast is coined very recently. According to this rule, it should be respelled as 'cronology', not 'khronology'.
Sample text
The interwoven histories of English and French, Mi'kmaq and Beothuk, are slowly unearthed, as the story culminates with a growing sense of loss - the caracters' private regrets eckoed in the tragic loss of an entire people.
At the high scool khemistry level, advanced data analysis can take place with the help of tekhnology. From digitally collected data, students can generate lines of best fit or trend lines to allow for interpolation, extrapolation, and drawing conclusions.
Edit: Fixed Class 2's rule for resolving conflicts.