Dialects and Spelling Reforms

A lot of people oppose spelling reforms for some languages (especially English) on the basis that different dialects have different sounds and therefore the reform would only be useful for one dialect and not the others. However, I've never really understood their reason for concern, because...

  1. Most of these differences are slight variations on the same "diaphoneme". For example, e and eɪ might be variations on the ay sound, but that doesn't mean they have to spelled two different ways. If you use another dialect's variant instead of your own in your speech, chances are no one will notice.
  2. Spelling reforms don't have to be general. Different dialects can get different spelling reforms. English speakers are okay with having different spellings for different words, even if the reforms aren't actually useful (why analyze and not rize?). It isn't going to impede communication because in most cases only one letter or two will be changed in a word. There just can't be multiple spellings within a country for standardization purposes.
    1. If a language just has to have one sole spelling system, compromises can be made. For example, my Greek-based spelling reform, Anglika, has a separate letter for the augh in caught, maintains the Marry-merry-Mary split, and keeps t and d separate between vowels, even though my dialect does none of those things.
  3. Even if one dialect does end up being chosen to create the new orthography, the result will usually still be far better than using the old one. For English speakers, which is better, using an odd mash of French, Germanic, and English spelling conventions and memorizing tens of thousands of irregularities, or using a phonetic alphabet based on RP (where you can simply memorize the few hundreds words that are pronounced differently in your dialect)?
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