A universal writing system, what do you think?

Question

In September 2001 at the UNESCO Symposium on "Language in Cyberspace" in Seoul, Kim-Cho presented a paper entitled "Possibility of Universal Applicability of Hwunmin Cengeum (Huminjeongeum) - Nurigeul, the Korean Alphabet of 1446.”

After listening to the demonstration on the universal applicability of Nurigeul, Dr. Victor Montviloff, vice chair of the symposium, agreed that "Hangeuljamo" (the formal term of Nurigeul in Unicode (ISO 10646)) is the "best phonetic alphabet for the transliteration of the entire range of human speech sounds." Dr. Christian Galinski, chair of the symposium also called it "a universally applicable Phonetic Alphabet.”

But when Kim-Cho requested UNESCO officially adopt Nurigeul as the Global Writing System, an alphabet to record those languages lacking their own alphabets, she was asked to carry out case studies. If the results are successful, the U.N. agency will seriously consider the request.

From March, 2003 to March 2007, Nurigeul training courses were held in Korea, China, the U.S. and Southeast Asia. The trainees were future missionaries from India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, the Philippines, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Nepal, Kazakhstan and other countries with people deprived of education and access to world events.

Source:

http://www.korea.net/news/Issues/issueDetailView.asp?board_no=18140

Answer 1

i feal that would be easy for everyone to learn but also just bcause who pronounce the same doesnt change our language we speak

so even though with the english alphabet i type erbhiuoa doesnt mean eveyone knows what i mean

Answer 2

won't work for such language as Chinese for there are plenty of homophones

Answer 3

sounds like world domination. mmmm. no thanks

Answer 4

I think that there is no way that this will be universally adopted, even if the UN decides that it will. Most people I know are extremely proud of their language and what makes it individual. A big part of that is the writing system.  To think that everyone would abandon a huge part of their language for something that others call more efficient is silly.

In addition to that, phonetic spelling systems DO NOT WORK for many languages. It would work for English, though many ambiguities would be created (There would be no difference between "to", "too", and "two", "there" and "their", etc).  Everyone bashes the English spelling system for having differently-spelled homophones, but in actuality they greatly aide the understanding of English text.

This would be taken to the extreme for languages like Chinese, which has a huge number of homophones that can only be distinguished by the fact that they are written differently. Japanese would be readable, but anyone familiar with the language can tell you that reading it in pure hiragana and katakana (the Japanese phonetic systems) is a huge headache.

Nurigeul looks like a very well-developed and thought out writing system, but I would be willing to bet almost anything that it will not replace current writing systems -- They are what they are for a reason.

Answer 5

Such a scheme would have rather more prospect of success than the idea of a "Universal Language", although I would foresee many societies having to have their arms severely twisted before they would accept it.