Orthography Comparison
How each Ingglish spelling compares with the way other languages write the same sound. Nearly every choice is already used by at least one major language.
For the reasoning behind each spelling, see Vowels, Sound by Sound and Consonants, Sound by Sound. For how Ingglish compares with other current spelling reform proposals, see Reforms Proposed Today.
Languages Compared
This page compares Ingglish with 37 languages (English included), listed here by approximate number of speakers (native plus second-language). Languages marked ® are normally written in another script; for those we compare their standard Latin-letter romanization. Every table on this page lists languages in this same order.
| Language | Speakers | Script |
|---|---|---|
| English | 1.5B | Latin |
| Mandarin (Pinyin) | 1.1B | Latin romanization ® |
| Hindi/Urdu (rom.) | 600M | Latin romanization ® |
| Spanish | 560M | Latin |
| French | 310M | Latin |
| Arabic (rom.) | 310M | Latin romanization ® |
| Indonesian/Malay | 300M | Latin |
| Portuguese | 260M | Latin |
| Russian (rom.) | 260M | Latin romanization ® |
| German | 130M | Latin |
| Japanese (Romaji) | 125M | Latin romanization ® |
| Swahili | 100M | Latin |
| Turkish | 85M | Latin |
| Vietnamese | 85M | Latin |
| Korean (rom.) | 80M | Latin romanization ® |
| Hausa | 75M | Latin |
| Italian | 65M | Latin |
| Yoruba | 50M | Latin |
| Polish | 45M | Latin |
| Ukrainian (rom.) | 40M | Latin romanization ® |
| Dutch | 25M | Latin |
| Romanian | 24M | Latin |
| Azerbaijani | 23M | Latin |
| Somali | 20M | Latin |
| Czech | 13M | Latin |
| Swedish | 13M | Latin |
| Hungarian | 13M | Latin |
| Catalan | 10M | Latin |
| Albanian | 8M | Latin |
| Croatian/Serbian | 7M | Latin |
| Danish | 6M | Latin |
| Finnish | 5M | Latin |
| Norwegian | 5M | Latin |
| Slovenian | 2M | Latin |
| Welsh | 1M | Latin |
| Estonian | 1M | Latin |
| Icelandic | 0.4M | Latin |
Vowels
Short Vowels
Short 'A' Sound (/æ/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| a (Ingglish) | English, Pinyin, Hindi, Spanish, French, Arabic, Indonesian, Portuguese, Russian, German, Japanese, Swahili, Turkish, Vietnamese, Korean, Hausa, Italian, Yoruba, Polish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Romanian, Azerbaijani, Somali, Czech, Swedish, Hungarian, Catalan, Albanian, Croatian, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Slovenian, Welsh, Estonian, Icelandic |
| ä | German, Swedish, Finnish |
| æ | Danish, Norwegian |
Notes:
- English /æ/ is pronounced further forward than the /a/ of most languages, but 'a' is still the natural letter for it
- Old English had its own letter for this sound, 'æ' (ash); Ingglish uses plain 'a'
- Germanic languages often use ä for similar sounds; Finnish ä is exactly /æ/
- In Danish and Norwegian, æ is a separate letter of the alphabet, not a variant of a
- Hungarian 'a' is /ɒ/ (a rounded back vowel), quite different from /æ/, but it is still written 'a'
Short 'E' Sound (/ɛ/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| e (Ingglish) | English, Pinyin, Hindi, Spanish, French, Arabic, Indonesian, Portuguese, Russian, German, Japanese, Swahili, Turkish, Vietnamese, Korean, Hausa, Italian, Yoruba, Polish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Romanian, Azerbaijani, Somali, Czech, Swedish, Hungarian, Catalan, Albanian, Croatian, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Slovenian, Welsh, Estonian, Icelandic |
| è | Italian, Catalan |
| é | Portuguese |
| ä (short) | German |
Notes:
- Every Latin-script language here uses 'e'
- Portuguese, Italian, and Catalan use accent marks to distinguish open /ɛ/ from close /e/
- German short ä is also /ɛ/, so it overlaps with 'e'
Short 'I' Sound (/ɪ/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| i (Ingglish) | English, Pinyin, Hindi, Spanish, French, Arabic, Indonesian, Portuguese, Russian, German, Japanese, Swahili, Turkish, Vietnamese, Korean, Hausa, Italian, Yoruba, Polish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Romanian, Azerbaijani, Somali, Czech, Swedish, Hungarian, Catalan, Albanian, Croatian, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Slovenian, Welsh, Estonian, Icelandic |
| y (/ɨ/ ≈ /ɪ/) | Polish, Ukrainian |
| ı (dotless, /ɯ/) | Turkish |
Notes:
- Every Latin-script language here uses 'i'
- English /ɪ/ is slightly more open than the /i/ of most other languages, but 'i' works for both
- Polish 'y' is /ɨ/ (a central vowel close to /ɪ/); Ukrainian romanization uses 'y' for и /ɪ/
- Turkish writes /ɯ/ with a dotless ı and keeps the dotted i for /i/
Short 'O' Sound (/ɑ/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| o (Ingglish) | English, Pinyin, Hindi, Spanish, French, Arabic, Indonesian, Portuguese, Russian, German, Japanese, Swahili, Turkish, Vietnamese, Korean, Hausa, Italian, Yoruba, Polish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Romanian, Azerbaijani, Somali, Czech, Swedish, Hungarian, Catalan, Albanian, Croatian, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Slovenian, Welsh, Estonian, Icelandic |
| a (/ɒ/) | Hungarian |
Notes:
- Nearly all Latin-script languages use 'o' for back vowels
- The vowel of American English "hot" is /ɑ/ (open, back, unrounded). It is more open than the /o/ or /ɔ/ of most other languages, but 'o' is the usual letter for it
- Hungarian reverses the usual pattern: plain 'a' = /ɒ/ (close to British "lot"), while 'á' = /aː/
- "Father" has the same vowel: English spells it 'a', Ingglish 'o'
Short 'U' Sound (/ʌ/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| uh (Ingglish) | English (interjection) |
| u | English (traditional: "but", "cup") |
| eo | Korean |
| ă | Romanian, Vietnamese |
Notes:
- The English /ʌ/ sound (as in "but") is fairly rare; most of the 37 languages compared here don't have it
- Most languages use 'u' for /u/ (as in "too") or /ʊ/ (as in "book"), not for /ʌ/
- 'uh' is the English interjection for exactly this sound, so every English reader already knows how to say it
- Spelling /ʌ/ as 'uh' leaves 'u' free for /ʊ/, which matches most of the world's languages
- English sometimes spells this sound 'o' ("son", "love", "come"); Ingglish always uses 'uh'
- Korean romanization uses 'eo' for ㅓ /ʌ/; Romanian and Vietnamese 'ă' is /ə/ (close to /ʌ/)
- The unstressed schwa (/ə/) is spelled 'a', not 'uh'; see the Schwa section below
Long Vowels
'AY' Sound (/eɪ/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| ay (Ingglish) | English |
| ei | Pinyin, Portuguese, Dutch, Icelandic |
| ej | Polish, Czech, Croatian, Swedish |
| ai | Indonesian |
| ey | Turkish |
Notes:
- Most languages have a steady /e/ or /eː/ (a monophthong) rather than the gliding /eɪ/ (a diphthong)
- 'ay' matches English: "say", "day", "play", "way"
- Dutch 'ei' and Pinyin 'ei' are very similar diphthongs (German 'ei' is a different sound, /aɪ/)
- Spanish, French, Italian, Swahili, Finnish and many other languages simply write their monophthong /e/ as 'e'
'EE' Sound (/iː/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| ee (Ingglish) | English |
| i (no length distinction) | Pinyin, Hindi, Spanish, French, Arabic, Indonesian, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Swahili, Turkish, Vietnamese, Korean, Hausa, Italian, Yoruba, Polish, Ukrainian, Romanian, Azerbaijani, Swedish, Catalan, Albanian, Croatian, Danish, Norwegian, Slovenian, Welsh |
| ii | Somali, Finnish, Estonian |
| ie | German, Dutch |
| í | Czech, Hungarian, Icelandic |
Notes:
- Finnish and Estonian double a vowel to make it long; Ingglish 'ee' follows the same principle
- Finnish tuuli (wind) and tuli (fire) differ only in vowel length
- 'ee' already exists in English ("bee", "see", "tree")
- Most languages don't mark vowel length and use 'i' for both short and long
- Dutch/German use 'ie' for /iː/; Czech/Hungarian/Icelandic use accent marks
'AI' Sound (/aɪ/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| ai (Ingglish) | Pinyin, Hindi, Arabic, Indonesian, Japanese, Vietnamese, Italian |
| ei | German, Dutch |
| ij | Dutch |
| aj | Polish, Czech, Swedish, Albanian, Croatian |
| ay | Turkish, Hausa, Somali |
| ae | Icelandic |
| i-e, igh, y | English |
Notes:
- Pinyin, Italian, Vietnamese and Indonesian all use 'ai' for this sound
- German 'ei' is /aɪ/ but German 'ie' is /iː/, which confuses learners
- Dutch uses both 'ij' and 'ei' for /ɛi/ ≈ /aɪ/
- In English, 'ai' spells /eɪ/ (rain, paint). Ingglish spells that sound 'ay', which leaves 'ai' free for /aɪ/
- Many languages (Spanish, French, Finnish, Swahili) lack this diphthong entirely
'OH' Sound (/oʊ/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| oh (Ingglish) | — |
| oo | Dutch, Finnish, Estonian |
| ó | Czech, Hungarian, Icelandic |
| ou | Pinyin |
| o, oa, ow, o-e | English |
Notes:
- The diphthong /oʊ/ is mostly an English sound; most languages have a monophthong /o/ or /oː/, written simply 'o'
- Ingglish already uses 'o' for /ɑ/ (hot), so /oʊ/ needs a digraph (a two-letter spelling)
- 'oh' matches the English interjection "oh!" which has this exact sound
- Dutch/Finnish/Estonian double the vowel for length (oo = /oː/); Czech/Hungarian/Icelandic use accent marks
'OO' Sound (/uː/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| oo (Ingglish) | English |
| u | Pinyin, Hindi, Spanish, French, Arabic, Indonesian, Portuguese, Russian, German, Japanese, Swahili, Turkish, Vietnamese, Korean, Hausa, Italian, Yoruba, Polish, Ukrainian, Romanian, Azerbaijani, Somali, Swedish, Catalan, Albanian, Croatian, Danish, Norwegian, Slovenian, Welsh |
| uu | Finnish, Estonian |
| oe | Dutch |
| ú/ů | Czech, Icelandic |
| ú | Hungarian |
| oo, ou, ew | English |
Notes:
- Matches English: "too", "food", "moon", "cool" and "school" all spell /uː/ as 'oo'
- Most languages use 'u' and don't mark vowel length
- Dutch uses 'oe' for /u/ (boek = book, goed = good)
- Czech uses both 'ú' (word-initial) and 'ů' (elsewhere) for /uː/
- Finnish/Estonian use 'uu' for /uː/; Ingglish previously followed this but switched to 'oo' to match English
Diphthongs
'OU' Sound (/aʊ/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| ou (Ingglish) | English, Dutch |
| au | Indonesian, Portuguese, German, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Czech, Albanian, Croatian |
| ao | Pinyin |
| aw | Arabic, Hausa, Somali |
| á (before certain consonants) | Icelandic |
Notes:
- Dutch also uses 'ou' for this sound (oud = old)
- German/Portuguese use 'au' (Haus, mau); Pinyin uses 'ao' (hǎo = good)
- Many languages (Spanish, French, Finnish, Swahili, Turkish, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean) lack this diphthong entirely
- Some English words already spell this sound 'ou': "out", "loud", "sound"
'OI' Sound (/ɔɪ/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| oi (Ingglish) | English, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Italian, Dutch, Romanian, Albanian |
| oy | English, Turkish, Somali |
| eu/äu | German |
| oj | Polish, Czech, Swedish, Croatian, Finnish, Slovenian |
Notes:
- 'oi' or 'oy' is the most common spelling worldwide
- German is the outlier: it writes /ɔʏ/ ≈ /ɔɪ/ as 'eu' (Freude) and 'äu' (Häuser)
- French 'oi' is /wa/, not /ɔɪ/
- Many languages (Spanish, Pinyin, Japanese, Swahili, Hindi, Arabic) lack this diphthong
'AW' Sound (/ɔ/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| aw (Ingglish) | English |
| o | Pinyin, Hindi, Spanish, French, Arabic, Indonesian, Portuguese, Russian, German, Japanese, Swahili, Turkish, Vietnamese, Korean, Hausa, Italian, Polish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Romanian, Azerbaijani, Somali, Czech, Hungarian, Albanian, Croatian, Finnish, Slovenian, Welsh, Estonian, Icelandic |
| å | Swedish, Danish, Norwegian |
| ò | Catalan |
| ọ | Yoruba |
Notes:
- English spells this sound many different ways: "law", "caught", "thought", "all"
- Ingglish always uses 'aw', as in English "law", "saw", "jaw"
- Scandinavian languages have a separate letter for this sound, å
- Catalan distinguishes open ò /ɔ/ from close ó /o/; Yoruba uses ọ (dot below) for /ɔ/
- Plain 'o' already spells /ɑ/ (father, hot), so it can't also spell /ɔ/
'U' Sound (/ʊ/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| u (Ingglish) | Pinyin, Hindi, Spanish, French, Arabic, Indonesian, Portuguese, Russian, German, Japanese, Swahili, Turkish, Vietnamese, Korean, Hausa, Italian, Yoruba, Polish, Ukrainian, Romanian, Azerbaijani, Somali, Czech, Swedish, Hungarian, Catalan, Albanian, Croatian, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Slovenian, Welsh, Estonian, Icelandic |
| oo | English ("book", "good", "look") |
| oe | Dutch |
Notes:
- 'u' is the standard vowel letter for this sound across virtually all Latin-script languages
- English distinguishes "too" /uː/ from "book" /ʊ/; Ingglish keeps them apart as 'oo' vs. 'u'
- Dutch uses 'oe' for this sound: boek (book), goed (good)
- Most languages don't distinguish /ʊ/ from /uː/ and use 'u' for both
Schwa (/ə/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| a (Ingglish) | — |
| a, e, i, o, u | English |
| e (unstressed) | Indonesian, Portuguese, German, French, Dutch, Catalan |
| ă | Romanian |
| ë | Albanian |
| ơ | Vietnamese |
| y (in some positions) | Welsh |
| unstressed vowel reduction | Russian, Ukrainian |
Notes:
- The schwa is the most common vowel sound in English: the weak, unstressed "uh" found in many syllables
- English spells it with any vowel letter, depending on the word's history
- Ingglish uses 'a' for the unstressed schwa and 'uh' for the stressed /ʌ/ (as in "but"). In ARPAbet, the sound notation of the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, these are AH0 and AH1/AH2; the digit marks stress
- As a result, many words are spelled the same as in English (about, banana, panda, karma), and the unstressed schwa still looks different from the stressed /ʌ/
- Romanian 'ă' and Albanian 'ë' are dedicated letters for /ə/
- Indonesian 'e' (called "e pepet") is /ə/ in many common words
- Portuguese and Catalan reduce unstressed vowels to schwa; Russian/Ukrainian reduce unstressed 'o' and 'a' to /ɐ/ (near-schwa)
- Many languages (Spanish, Italian, Finnish, Turkish, Polish and others) have no schwa: every vowel is pronounced fully, stressed or not
R-Colored Vowels
R-colored vowels (also called rhotic vowels) are vowels blended with an /r/ sound, as in "car" or "her". They are rare across the world's languages (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996, The Sounds of the World's Languages). Of the 37 languages compared here, only English and Mandarin Chinese have them. They are hard to spell because the vowel and the /r/ merge into a single sound.
In each table below, the "naive" row shows what you would get by writing the ordinary Ingglish vowel followed by 'r'.
'ARR' Sound (/æɹ/)
| Language | Spelling | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Ingglish | arr | arroh, karrat, barral |
| Ingglish (naive) | ar (a + r) | aroh, karat, baral |
| English | arr, ar | arrow, carrot, barrel |
Notes:
- By the ordinary vowel rules, /æ/ + /r/ would be 'ar', but 'ar' already spells /ɑɹ/ (star). Doubling the 'r' avoids the clash.
- Matches the English spelling of "arrow", "carrot", "barrel"
'AIR' Sound (/ɛɹ/)
| Language | Spelling | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Ingglish | air | air, kair, dhair |
| Ingglish (naive) | er (e + r) | er, ker, dher |
| English | air, are, ear, ere | air, care, bear, there |
Notes:
- By the ordinary rules, /ɛ/ + /r/ would be 'er', but 'er' already spells /ɝ/ (her). "Care" would become "ker", with the same 'er' as "her".
- Ingglish always uses 'air', matching the word "air" itself
- This spelling avoids merging many such words with the unrelated 'her' set
'EER' Sound (/ɪɹ/)
| Language | Spelling | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Ingglish | eer | beer, beerd, feer |
| Ingglish (naive) | ir (i + r) | bir, bird, fir |
| English | eer, ear, ere, ier | beer, beard, fear, here, pier |
Notes:
- By the ordinary rules, /ɪ/ + /r/ would be 'ir', and "beard" would become "bird", clashing with the animal
- Ingglish always uses 'eer', matching the word "beer" itself
- The /ɪɹ/ of "beer" (the NEAR vowel) is a different sound from the /ɪ/ of "bit" (the KIT vowel, ARPAbet IH)
'AR' Sound (/ɑɹ/)
| Language | Spelling | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Ingglish | ar | star, kar, far |
| Ingglish (naive) | or (o + r) | stor, kor, for |
| English | ar | star, car, far |
Notes:
- By the ordinary rules, /ɑ/ + /r/ would be 'or' (Ingglish writes /ɑ/ as 'o'), but 'or' is needed for /ɔɹ/ (store). "Star" and "store" would both be spelled with 'or'.
- Ingglish uses 'ar' instead, exactly as English does: "star" is spelled the same in both.
'OR' Sound (/ɔɹ/)
| Language | Spelling | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Ingglish | or | stor, mor, for |
| Ingglish (naive) | awr (aw + r) | stawr, mawr, fawr |
| English | ore, or, our, oar | store, more, four, oar |
Notes:
- By the ordinary rules, /ɔ/ + /r/ would be 'awr' (Ingglish writes /ɔ/ as 'aw'), but 'awr' looks awkward and unfamiliar
- 'or' is familiar, and no other sound needs it, because /ɑɹ/ uses 'ar'
- It is easy to tell apart from 'ar' (star vs stor)
'ER' Sound (/ɝ/)
| Language | Spelling | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Ingglish | er | berd, her, tern |
| English | ir, er, ur, ear, or | bird, her, turn, earth, work |
| Mandarin Chinese | er | 二 èr (two), 儿 ér (son) |
Notes:
- There is no clash here: 'er' works as-is for this merged vowel + r sound
- English has five different spellings for this sound; Ingglish always uses 'er'
- Mandarin is one of the few languages with r-colored vowels; adding this r-coloring to a syllable is called erhua (儿化)
'UR' Sound (/ʊɹ/)
| Language | Spelling | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Ingglish | ur | tur, kyur, shur |
| English | our, ure, oor | tour, cure, sure, moor |
Notes:
- There is no clash here: Ingglish writes /ʊ/ (put) as 'u', so the ordinary rule already gives 'ur'
- This is the vowel of "tour" and "cure" (the CURE vowel). Many American speakers merge it with 'or' or 'er', but the CMU dictionary keeps it apart.
'UHR' Sound (/ʌɹ/)
| Language | Spelling | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Ingglish | uhr | kuhree, huhray, bainuhreez |
| English | urr, ur, ar | curry, hurray, binaries |
Notes:
- Stressed, this is the vowel of "cup" (written 'uh') before an r, so the ordinary rule gives 'uhr'
- The same sound unstressed is schwa, which Ingglish usually writes 'a'. By that rule schwa + /r/ would be 'ar', which already spells /ɑɹ/ (star). Ingglish uses 'uhr' for both, so "binaries" is bainuhreez.
Consonants
Stops
The stop consonants (p, b, t, d, k, g) use the standard single letters, found in almost every Latin-script language.
| Ingglish | IPA | Example |
|---|---|---|
| p | /p/ | pat, happy, cup |
| b | /b/ | bat, about, cab |
| t | /t/ | top, better, cat |
| d | /d/ | dog, ladder, bed |
| k | /k/ | cat, backer, back |
| g | /g/ | go, bigger, big |
Notes:
- Ingglish uses 'k' instead of 'c' for the /k/ sound (no "soft c")
- 'g' is always hard /g/, never /dʒ/ as in English "gem"
Fricatives
The simple fricatives (f, v, s, z, h) use the standard single letters, found in every Latin-script language.
| Ingglish | IPA | Example |
|---|---|---|
| f | /f/ | fat, after, laugh |
| v | /v/ | van, over, love |
| s | /s/ | sat, missing, miss |
| z | /z/ | zoo, buzzing, is |
| h | /h/ | hat, ahead, behind |
Notes:
- 's' is always /s/, never /z/ as in English "rose" (Ingglish: rohz)
- These five consonants need nothing special
The remaining fricatives need digraphs, and languages spell them in many different ways:
"SH" Sound (/ʃ/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| sh (Ingglish) | English, Hindi, Arabic, Russian, Swahili, Korean, Hausa, Ukrainian, Somali, Albanian |
| ch | French, Portuguese |
| sch | German, Dutch |
| ş/ș | Turkish, Romanian, Azerbaijani |
| sc (before e/i) | Italian |
| sz | Polish |
| š | Czech, Croatian, Slovenian, Estonian |
| sj/sk (before front vowels) | Swedish, Norwegian |
| s | Hungarian |
| x | Catalan |
| x (≈ /ɕ/) | Pinyin |
Notes:
- Ingglish follows English with 'sh', which Albanian also uses (as an official letter), as do many romanization systems
- German 'sch' takes three letters; Polish 'sz' would confuse English readers
- Hungarian reverses the usual pattern: plain 's' = /ʃ/, while 'sz' = /s/ (the opposite of Polish)
- Languages with diacritics write the sound as a single letter (š, ş/ș)
- Pinyin 'x' is /ɕ/ (an alveolo-palatal sound), a close relative of /ʃ/
- Vietnamese, Spanish, Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Welsh, and Yoruba lack /ʃ/ entirely (or use it only in loanwords)
"ZH" Sound (/ʒ/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| zh (Ingglish) | Hindi, Russian, Ukrainian, Albanian |
| j | French, Portuguese, Turkish, Romanian, Azerbaijani, Catalan |
| ż/rz | Polish |
| zs | Hungarian |
| ž | Czech, Croatian, Slovenian, Estonian |
Notes:
- English has no consistent spelling for /ʒ/ (the sound in "measure"); Ingglish gives it one: 'zh'
- 'sh' and 'zh' form a pair, voiceless and voiced, just like 's' and 'z'
- Cyrillic romanization uses 'zh' for Ж
- Polish has two spellings for /ʐ/: ż (a letter) and rz (a digraph)
- Many languages lack /ʒ/ entirely (English has it, but no consistent spelling for it): Spanish, German, Dutch, Italian, Indonesian, Swahili, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, Hausa, Yoruba, Finnish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Welsh
"TH" Sound (/θ/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| th (Ingglish) | English, Arabic, Albanian, Welsh |
| þ (thorn) | Icelandic |
| c/z (Castilian) | Spanish |
Notes:
- Only ~4% of languages have /θ/, per PHOIBLE 2.0 (a database of the sound inventories of 3,000+ languages; Moran & McCloy 2019). That makes it one of the world's rarest consonants.
- Icelandic writes /θ/ as þ (thorn); Old English used þ and ð interchangeably for both /θ/ and /ð/
- Castilian Spanish writes /θ/ as 'c' (before e/i) and 'z'; Latin American Spanish doesn't have this sound
- The IPA symbol θ is the Greek letter theta, whose sound shifted from /tʰ/ in Ancient Greek to /θ/ in Modern Greek
- The other 31 compared languages don't have this sound
"DH" Sound (/ð/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| dh (Ingglish) | Arabic, Albanian |
| th | English |
| ð (eth) | Icelandic |
| dd | Welsh |
| d (allophonic) | Spanish |
Notes:
- Ingglish uses 'dh' to tell voiced /ð/ (the) apart from voiceless /θ/ (think)
- Albanian uses 'dh' as an official alphabet letter for /ð/
- Icelandic writes /ð/ as ð (eth); its split between the voiced and voiceless letters is a modern Icelandic convention, not an Old English one
- Welsh uses 'dd' for /ð/; we considered 'dd', but 'dh' is more intuitive
- Spanish 'd' is pronounced [ð] between vowels (nada), but only as a variant of /d/, not as a separate phoneme
- Only ~7% of languages have /ð/: a little more than have /θ/ (~4%), but still rare
Affricates
"CH" Sound (/tʃ/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| ch (Ingglish) | English, Pinyin, Hindi, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Hausa, Ukrainian |
| c (before e/i) | Italian, Romanian |
| ç | Turkish, Azerbaijani |
| cz | Polish |
| cs | Hungarian |
| č | Czech, Albanian, Croatian, Slovenian, Estonian |
| tsch | German |
| tx | Catalan |
Notes:
- Many major Latin-script languages use 'ch' for /tʃ/ (Spanish, English, Portuguese)
- The same digraph means different sounds elsewhere: French 'ch' = /ʃ/ and Czech 'ch' = /x/
- Hungarian 'cs' fits its usual reversed pattern (compare: 's' = /ʃ/, 'sz' = /s/)
- Pinyin 'ch' is /tʂʰ/ (an aspirated retroflex sound), close to /tʃ/
- Vietnamese, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, Dutch, and Swahili lack /tʃ/
"J" Sound (/dʒ/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| j (Ingglish) | English, Hindi, Indonesian, Swahili, Hausa, Somali |
| g (before e/i) | Italian, Romanian |
| c | Turkish, Azerbaijani |
| dż | Polish |
| dzs | Hungarian |
| dž | Czech, Croatian, Slovenian |
| xh | Albanian |
Notes:
- 'j' for /dʒ/ matches English
- It is also widely used in Southeast Asia (Indonesian/Malay), East Africa (Swahili, Somali) and Indian romanization
- Italian uses 'g' before front vowels (giorno); Turkish swaps the letters: 'c' = /dʒ/, 'j' = /ʒ/
- Albanian 'xh' = /dʒ/, while Albanian 'x' = /dz/
- French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Vietnamese, Icelandic, and Welsh lack /dʒ/
Nasals
The simple nasals (m, n) use the standard single letters, found in every Latin-script language.
| Ingglish | IPA | Example |
|---|---|---|
| m | /m/ | man, hammer, come |
| n | /n/ | no, running, pen |
The velar nasal /ŋ/ (the sound at the end of "sing") needs a digraph:
"NG" Sound (/ŋ/)
| Spelling | Languages |
|---|---|
| ng (Ingglish) | English, Pinyin, Indonesian, German, Vietnamese, Korean, Hausa, Yoruba, Dutch, Somali, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Welsh, Icelandic |
| ng' (with apostrophe) | Swahili |
| ngh (before i, e) | Vietnamese |
| n (allophonic before g/k) | Hindi, Spanish, French, Arabic, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Turkish, Italian, Polish, Ukrainian, Romanian, Azerbaijani, Czech, Hungarian, Catalan, Albanian, Croatian, Finnish, Slovenian, Estonian |
Notes:
- 'ng' is used for this sound almost everywhere
- Swahili uses 'ng'' (with apostrophe) to distinguish /ŋ/ from the /ŋɡ/ cluster
- Vietnamese uses 'ngh' before front vowels (e, i) for the same /ŋ/ sound
- In many languages, /ŋ/ occurs only as a variant of /n/ before /k/ or /g/, not as a separate phoneme
- Polynesian languages treat /ŋ/ as a letter of their own alphabet rather than a variant of 'n', often written 'g' or 'ng'
Liquids & Glides
The liquids (l, r) and glides (w, y) use the standard single letters, found in every Latin-script language.
| Ingglish | IPA | Example |
|---|---|---|
| l | /l/ | let, bellow, well |
| r | /ɹ/ | run, carry, car |
| w | /w/ | wet, away, always |
| y | /j/ | yes, beyond, canyon |
Notes:
- 'l' and 'r' are the standard letters for liquids in almost every language
- 'w' is less common in some European languages but widely understood
- 'y' for /j/ follows English, Indonesian, Swahili, Turkish and Pinyin; German, Dutch, Scandinavian and most Slavic languages write this sound 'j' (Spanish uses 'y' for a different sound)
Summary
The tables above answer one narrow question: does some other language already spell this sound the way Ingglish does? Mostly yes, as the ratings below show.
They don't answer why Ingglish chose that spelling over the alternatives it measured, or what history the choice has. That reasoning lives on Vowels, Sound by Sound and Consonants, Sound by Sound, one section per sound.
Commonality Ratings Summary
Each spelling is rated by how widely the compared languages use it:
- Universal: Used by most of the 37 compared languages for this sound
- Common: Used by multiple language families (5+ languages)
- Regional: Used by a specific language family or region (2–4 languages)
- Rare: Used by few languages (1 or unique to Ingglish)
Vowels
Short Vowels
| Ingglish | Sound | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| a | /æ/ | Universal | All 37 languages use 'a' for an open front vowel |
| e | /ɛ/ | Universal | All 37 languages |
| i | /ɪ/ | Universal | All 37 languages |
| o | /ɑ/ | Universal | All 37 languages use 'o' for back vowels; English /ɑ/ is more open than most |
| uh | /ʌ/ | Rare | English interjection "uh"; frees 'u' for /ʊ/ (Universal) |
Long Vowels
| Ingglish | Sound | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| ay | /eɪ/ | Regional | English "say, day, play"; most languages have monophthong /e/ instead |
| ee | /iː/ | Common | Finnish/Estonian doubling principle; English "bee, see" |
| ai | /aɪ/ | Common | Pinyin, Italian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Hindi, Arabic, Japanese (7+ languages) |
| oh | /oʊ/ | Rare | Unique to Ingglish; needed because 'o' is used for /ɑ/. Most languages have monophthong /o/ |
| oo | /uː/ | Common | English "too, food, moon, cool"; matches existing English convention |
Diphthongs
| Ingglish | Sound | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| ou | /aʊ/ | Common | English "out, loud, sound" + Dutch "oud" |
| oi | /ɔɪ/ | Common | English, Italian, Dutch, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Romanian, Albanian (7+ languages) |
| aw | /ɔ/ | Regional | English "law, saw"; most other languages use plain 'o' for /ɔ/ |
| u | /ʊ/ | Universal | Most world languages use 'u' for this vowel; previously 'oo' (Regional) |
R-Colored Vowels
| Ingglish | Sound | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| ar | /ɑɹ/ | Rare | English-only; rhotic dialects only |
| or | /ɔɹ/ | Rare | English-only; rhotic dialects only |
| air | /ɛɹ/ | Rare | English-only; rhotic dialects only |
| arr | /æɹ/ | Regional | Doubled 'r' after short vowel; matches English "carrot", "barrel" |
| er | /ɝ/ | Regional | English and Mandarin erhua |
| eer | /ɪɹ/ | Rare | English-only; rhotic dialects only |
| ur | /ʊɹ/ | Rare | English-only; rhotic dialects only |
| uhr | /ʌɹ/ | Rare | English-only; 'uh' + r, so schwa + r stays apart from 'ar' |
Note: R-colored vowels are absent from 35 of the 37 compared languages. Only English and Mandarin have them.
Consonants
Stops
| Ingglish | Sound | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| p | /p/ | Universal | |
| b | /b/ | Universal | |
| t | /t/ | Universal | |
| d | /d/ | Universal | |
| k | /k/ | Universal | Ingglish uses 'k' instead of 'c' |
| g | /g/ | Universal | Always hard /g/, never /dʒ/ as in English "gem" |
Fricatives
| Ingglish | Sound | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| f | /f/ | Universal | |
| v | /v/ | Universal | |
| th | /θ/ | Regional | Only ~5 of 37 languages have this sound; English, Arabic, Welsh, Albanian, Icelandic |
| dh | /ð/ | Rare | Only ~5 of 37 languages; Albanian uses 'dh' officially |
| s | /s/ | Universal | Always /s/, never /z/ as in English "rose" |
| z | /z/ | Universal | |
| sh | /ʃ/ | Common | English, Albanian, Somali, Hausa, Swahili + 5 romanization systems (10 languages) |
| zh | /ʒ/ | Common | Cyrillic romanization (Russian, Ukrainian), Albanian, Hindi romanization |
| h | /h/ | Universal | Standard; silent in some languages but letter is universal |
Affricates
| Ingglish | Sound | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| ch | /tʃ/ | Common | English, Spanish, Portuguese, Pinyin, Hausa + 3 romanizations (8 languages) |
| j | /dʒ/ | Common | English, Indonesian, Swahili, Hausa, Somali, Hindi romanization (6 languages) |
Nasals
| Ingglish | Sound | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| m | /m/ | Universal | |
| n | /n/ | Universal | |
| ng | /ŋ/ | Universal | Used by 15+ languages; allophonic in many others |
Liquids & Glides
| Ingglish | Sound | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| l | /l/ | Universal | |
| r | /ɹ/ | Universal | Letter universal; exact sound varies by language |
| w | /w/ | Common | Less common in some European languages |
| y | /j/ | Common | English, Indonesian, Swahili, Turkish, Pinyin; German and Scandinavian use 'j' |
Takeaways
- Nearly every Ingglish spelling has precedent in at least one major language
- sh, ch, ng, j are Common or Universal across the 37 compared languages
- 'dh' for /ð/ has real precedent: Albanian uses it as an official alphabet letter
- Doubled vowels (ee, oo) follow the common practice of doubling a vowel to mark length
- 'ai' for /aɪ/ is used by 7+ major languages including Pinyin, Italian, Vietnamese
- 'u' for /ʊ/ matches virtually all world languages
- 'arr' for /æɹ/ matches English "carrot", "barrel", "arrow"
- 'oh' for /oʊ/ is the most unusual choice, but necessary because 'o' is used for /ɑ/
Phonemic Orthographies That Work
For why past reforms succeeded or failed, see Spelling Reform History.
These phonemic spelling systems, where each sound has one consistent spelling, already work well and use spellings similar to Ingglish's:
Finnish
Finnish is often cited as having the most transparent spelling in Europe, meaning you can reliably tell a word's sound from its spelling and vice versa:
- Near-perfect phoneme-to-grapheme consistency (Seymour, Aro & Erskine 2003)
- Double letters mark length (aa, ee, uu). Ingglish follows a similar principle (ee, oo)
- Finnish 'uu' for /uː/ inspired Ingglish's earlier 'uu'; Ingglish now uses 'oo' to match English
- Finnish-speaking children learn to read fluently significantly faster than English-speaking children (Seymour et al. 2003; Ziegler et al. 2010)
- Dyslexia is less common in languages with transparent spelling (Paulesu et al. 2001, "Dyslexia: Cultural Diversity and Biological Unity," Science)
Swahili
A successful African language written in Latin script:
- Nearly one letter per sound, and one sound per letter
- 'ng'' represents /ŋ/ (similar to our 'ng')
- 'dh' represents a dental sound (used variously for /ð/ or /d̪/ in loanwords)
- 'sh' represents /ʃ/, same as Ingglish
Polish
Very phonetic, even though it looks intimidating:
- Consistent digraph system: sz = /ʂ/, cz = /tʂ/, rz = /ʐ/, dż = /dʐ/
- Once you learn the digraphs and diacritical letters (ą, ę, ć, ś, ź, ń, ł, ó, ż), pronunciation is almost perfectly predictable from spelling
- 7 vowel phonemes + nasal vowels (ą, ę)
- The only irregularities: ó and u both spell /u/, and rz and ż both spell /ʐ/
- Changes in voicing caused by neighboring sounds, such as final devoicing, aren't written ("chleb" is pronounced /xlɛp/, with a final /p/), which is standard for Slavic languages
Hungarian
One of Europe's most phonetic spelling systems, with some unusual conventions:
- Highly consistent: every letter/digraph always represents the same sound
- Accent marks always show vowel length: a/á, e/é, i/í, o/ó, u/ú, ö/ő, ü/ű
- Unique reversed convention: plain 's' = /ʃ/ and 'sz' = /s/, the opposite of Polish and most other European languages
- Similarly: 'cs' = /tʃ/, 'zs' = /ʒ/, 'dzs' = /dʒ/
- The one irregularity: 'ly' is pronounced /j/, exactly like the letter 'j'; it is a leftover historical spelling
- Hungarian children learn to read significantly faster than English children, demonstrating the benefits of transparent orthography
Phoneme Frequency: How Common Are These Sounds?
Some sounds are much more common across the world's languages than others. The figures below are approximate, from PHOIBLE 2.0 (a database listing the sounds of 3,000+ languages). Exact percentages depend on which languages are included and how variant pronunciations (allophones) are counted, so treat them as a rough guide:
Consonants in Ingglish
| Sound | IPA | % of languages |
|---|---|---|
| m | /m/ | 96% |
| k | /k/ | 90% |
| n | /n/ | 88% |
| p | /p/ | 86% |
| t | /t/ | 85% |
| j (as in "yes") | /j/ | 84% |
| w | /w/ | 76% |
| s | /s/ | 75% |
| l | /l/ | 68% |
| h | /h/ | 62% |
| r | /r/ or /ɹ/ | 60% |
| ŋ (ng) | /ŋ/ | 51% |
| ʃ (sh) | /ʃ/ | 45% |
| tʃ (ch) | /tʃ/ | 44% |
| dʒ (j) | /dʒ/ | 30% |
| ʒ (zh) | /ʒ/ | 20% |
| ð (dh) | /ð/ | 7% |
| θ (th) | /θ/ | 4% |
English's two "th" sounds, /θ/ and /ð/ (called dental fricatives), are among the world's rarest consonants. Because few languages have them, most spelling systems never need to write them, and there is no standard Latin-script spelling for either.
Vowel Systems
Most languages have 5–7 distinct vowel sounds. English has 14–15, depending on dialect and on how you count (Ladefoged & Johnson 2014), making it unusually complex:
| Vowels | % of languages | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| 5 vowels | ~32% | Spanish, Japanese, Swahili (most common category) |
| 6 vowels | ~14% | Arabic, many Bantu languages |
| 7+ vowels | ~29% | German, French |
| 10+ vowels | <5% | English (14–15), Danish |
(Data from Maddieson 2013, WALS Chapter 2.)
English spelling is hard because it maps ~15 vowel sounds onto 5 vowel letters (a, e, i, o, u).
See Vowels, Sound by Sound for how Ingglish handles this.