Phase 3: Vowel Reformation

Step 5: Rebulid the vowel system.

This is perhaps the most complex part, because the English vowel system is barely even a system.

Rules we can state about English vowels:

1. Magic E on vowels or Split E.

   1. All of the 6 vowels (yes, including y) are modified by the letter E when the E appears 1, 2 or 3 letters after it, as long as the vowel is not modified by another letter (R, W, L).

      1. o → toe

      2. rot → rote

      3. hang → change

   2. This is extremely prevalent throughout the orthography, and is a defining feature of English.

   3. The rule is also broken in a fair majority of basic vocabulary.

      1. done love dove above

      2. move

      3. have badge

      4. wedge

      5. there, where,

2. Magic E on consonants

   1. C and G — "Assimilation"

      1. Assimilation is caused by the positions of two phonemes being very close in the mouth, then merging accidentally. This can become entrenched within a language's orthography, which happened in English in the past but modern English allows both assimilated and unassimilated sounds. Thus, ge is /ɡ/ in "get" but /ʤ/ in "general".

      2. Assimilation in English typically occurs between palatal consonants and palatal vowels.

      3. CE CI CY GE GI GY

      4. Mainly applies to C and G, changing C from /k/ into /s/ and G from /ɡ/ into /ʤ/.

      5. The rule with C is 100% consistent, except for a few Celtic & Gallic words.

         1. Celtic /kɛɫ.tɪk/ → C̊éltic

      6. The rule with G is broken basically all the time, especially in fundamental vocabulary and in many spelling codas like bag→bagged, rug→rugged, etc. — but these have double G.

         1. get, give, git, gild,