> Perhaps wi shuld rit a new langwij that spels wurds lik thay sownd? Dan Quayle would be willing to help, I'm sure ;)

Turkish for instance. Back in Kemal Attaturk's period (apologies to Turkish sensibilities if I get any of the following wrong) during the secularisation and westernisation of the country, the Roman alphabet was adopted exclusively (in place of Arabic, Cyrillic or whatever other alternatives they'd been using previously) and all words were phonetically transcribed. So, for instance, if you want to go into town and don't mind throwing you life to the fates, you take a Taksi. A problem arises though when a language has wide regional variations in pronunciation (and when they vary over time). The Chinese solved this several millenia ago by using ideograms - man symbol + roof symbol = house (apologies to Chinese sensibilities etc.).

When my turn came to learn to read I was fortunate to just sneak it in before the education system here decided to start all infants off with a phonetic system, then wean them onto traditional spelling once they'd grasped the rudiments. Needless to say the great experiment was soon discontinued.

eeniyl