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English is taking over the world.
Thanks to centuries of British and American dominance, the world is literally saturated with the language. No matter where you go, be it a densely populated city or a grass hut village deep in the jungle, you will be able to find written or spoken english.
English-Second-Language schools in every country are graduating tens of millions of students every year. Obscure languages are dying off all the time and some major languages are actually losing users. It appears likely that english will eventually be the only language left in general use.
Right now, you're probably thinking 'WOOHOO! I'm on the winning team!'
Yes. Great. No need to bother learning Spanish, Chinese or Esperanto.
But hold on a minute!
If english is so great, why haven't we bothered to do something about the spelling?
It currently costs us over 300 billion dollars a year in excess educational costs and daily usage inefficiencies. How much will it be when 10 billion people are using it? You could argue that it won't matter because there won't be any competition, but what if we have visitors?
Seriously - what will be our excuse for leaving this cornerstone of civilization in such a sorry state of decrepitude if, lets say, the Vulcans show up in 2112 and Spock's grandad asks 'Whats the deal with that, dude? Are humans like, retarded or something?'
Obviously, there is no excuse. We are going to look stupid and lazy. They will conclude that we are not worthy of being the Earth's dominant species and, using their mind bogglingly powerful technology, literally laugh us off the planet into the icy cold of space!
Fortunately, there's a real spelling system ready to go that's easy to learn and compatible with ordinary keyboards and computer systems. All we need to implement it is alot less anal Spelling Cop attitude and a alot more respect for lojik and efficiency.
Even if you agree that some kind of reform would be a good idea, you're probably having this knee-jerk reaction - never going to happen - based on vague notions of mountians of books and periodicals being churned out continuously and millions of stubborn people comfortable with the old spelling.
The truth is that the entire mass of media, equipment AND people is not static. Old stuff goes away. New stuff flows in. It never stops, so the quality of the stuff flowing in can be improved without messing with the old stuff. Relativly simple software can translate it perfectly, since it's still the same words and grammar. New phones and keyboards can be enhanced to better accomidate the extra letters, just as they are currently enhanced to work with the latest popular apps. New books can be printed both ways and old books can be reprinted in Nooalf if there is a demand. Grammar school students can learn Nooalf in a month and still spend the first few years learning the old way till nobody cares enough to waste the kid's time anymore.
Nooalf is an english based international spelling system. It's specifically designed to be readable by anybody who's literate in traditional english even if they have never seen Nooalf before. It's typeable on ordinary keyboards and shortens text by 15%.
Yes, you grew up with english and it's like an old friend, so you're not liking the idea of it ever changing. You certainly aren't about to learn any newfangled replacement, goramit! Just the idea of having to go thru all the drudgery of rememorizing all the words again is preposterous!
See that parade of letters marching along up there? THATS ALL THERE IS TO IT! 34 letters, most of which you already know, linked to 34 sounds which you already know but didn't know that you knew. Learn that and you are done. You can then THINK about spelling in Nooalf far more reliably than you were ever able to recall the 30 to 40 thousand semi random strings of letters that comprise your vocabulary.
The chart on the next page is all you need to learn the system. The pages beyond that cover details of it's logic, the benefits, why it's needed and how it will replace traditional spelling. So whether you're here to join the Revolution, skeptical that such a big change could be accomplished or angry that someone is messing with your beloved tradition, click the big arrow and see the future.
SITE NAVIGATION: This site is written in regular English and Nooalf. Click the logo at the top to switch back and forth. Click on the arrows to go to the next or previous page. The buttons below lead to foriegn language pages. There are no outside advertisements on this website.
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Nooalf and the Nooalf Revolution are a public service project of ZOL inc. © 2002 - 2010
pages are updated regularly. © is assumed if not indicated.
If you ran a search by typing spelling reform, phonics, phonetic, fonics, fonetic, fonetik, foniks, fonix, phonetic alphabet, literacy training, illiteracy, learn English, dyslexia, dyslexic, or virtually anything related to literacy and learning to spell, you have come to the right place.