So, that’s it for the consonants. If you like IPA, the consonants of English are:
| spelling | IPA | as in … |
| p | p | pen, spin, tip |
| b | b | but, web |
| t | t | two, sting, bet |
| d | d | do, odd |
| ch | tʃ | chair, nature, teach |
| j (g before [ei]) | dʒ | gin, joy, edge |
| k (c before [^ei], q before w) | k | cat, kill, skin, queen, thick |
| gh (g before [^ei]) | ɡ | go, get, beg |
| f | f | fool, enough, leaf |
| v | v | voice, have |
| th | θ | thing, teeth |
| dh | ð | this, breathe, father |
| s (c before [ei]) | s | see, city, pass |
| z | z | zoo, rose |
| sh | ʃ | she, sure, emotion, leash |
| zh | ʒ | pleasure, beige |
| h | h | ham |
| m | m | man, ham |
| n | n | no, tin |
| ng | ŋ | ringer, sing, drink |
| l | l | left, bell |
| r | ɹ | run, very |
| w | w | we |
| y | j | yes |
| wh | ʍ | what |
| x | ks | hexagon |
If we are going outside English into adjacent languages, we might also like these. Let’s take them, just in case.
| spelling | IPA | as in … |
| kh | x | loch, ankh (in Scottish) |
| lh | ɬ | Llanelli (in Welsh) |
| jh | ɣ | voiced version of kh (in Old English) |
That’s nearly it!
The last thing we need is some way of spelling words where these various digraphs appear, but are pronounced separately, as in ‘jachammer’ (the rule for ‘c’ make this the spelling of ‘jackhammer’), ‘longhorn,’ ‘carthorse,’ ‘redhanded,’ ‘mishap,’ ‘hogzhed’ (how we will spell ‘hogshead’), ‘ungainly’ or ‘engine,’ ‘foolhardy’ and ‘hejhog’ (the new ‘hedgehog’). These are mostly at syllable boundaries, which is why the ambiguity in spelling doesn’t matter so much. But we have to do better—a word is a word—so we need some sort of separator to keep them apart. We won’t be using the regular apostrophe any more, as that is a feature of spelling that has no pronunciation, so we can reuse it. But just for idiosyncratic fun, let’s point it other way typographically, and use the left quote instead the right quote. So these words become ‘jac‘hammer,’ ‘long‘horn,’ ‘cart‘horse,’ ‘red‘handed,’ ‘mis‘hap,’ ‘hogz‘hed,’ ‘un‘gainly,’ ‘en‘gine,’ ‘fool‘hardy’ and ‘hej‘hog.’
Wow. Next, the vowels.