PHONETIC SPELLING
Literacy is something many people take for granted, indeed many people are proud of their ability to read, write and spell proficiently. However, there are also many people who, for various reasons, battle with illiteracy all their lives. The problems associated with traditional spelling take a large part of the blame for this.
As language has developed over the centuries, the way we pronounce words has changed dramatically. Unfortunately spelling has not followed the same path. As a result, many words have little or no phonic resemblance to the way we say them, indeed only a few words are phonetically accurate.
Much thought has gone into overcoming the problem of teaching people, in particular children, how to spell. Unfortunately, illiteracy remains a major problem despite all the efforts. Phonetic systems developed in the past have been too complicated and probably caused more problems then they solved. The Oxford Dictionary system, for example, uses various different symbols not found in our normal alphabet and is complicated to learn. Although the system works, it would be impracticable to use on a day to day basis.
FS however, uses only the letters found in our existing alphabet and no unusual symbols. It's as easy, if not easier, to learn and extremely easy to use. In our traditional spelling system we have various ways of writing the same sound. For example, there are at least eight ways to write the sound "ee". With FS there is only one way to write each individual sound.
Can't remember how to spell a word? No problem. FS provides an accurate, simple and logical method of working it out. Word recognition is longer essential for spelling accuracy, it simply helps one to read and write faster.
FS also works well in most common languages and as a result it is easy to evaluate how foreign words should be pronounced. Assuming of course that the words are written in FS.
It goes without saying, that changing society over from traditional spelling to phonetic spelling would cause some disruption. However, the long term benefits are so great that it must be done. Fortunately with the aid of computers, transition difficulties would be considerably reduced and it would only be a matter of time before we were all wondering why it hadn't been done sooner.