The successful reform of the Turkish language could be an example to support the idea of reforming the English spelling system. If it worked somewhere else – why shouldn’t it work here?  The reform wouldn’t necessarily have to be solely based on the concept of a close phoneme-grapheme correlation but other “smaller” changes could make it a lot easier for the learners of the English language, especially speaking of children and foreign learners. At the same time, however, this would create problems for those people who already learned the language and are familiar with its orthography. 

     Just recently (1998) there was a reform regarding orthography in German speaking countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland). People looked at it in different ways: Some accepted the changes and thought they made spelling easier. Others, however were not exactly happy with the changes. One famous author, Guenter Grass, who won the Nobel Prize for his novel Die Blechtrommel refused to adjust his writing to the new way of correct spelling. Many people agreed with his arguments for aesthetic reasons. Part of it is because they are used to how all German words look like and now feel iritated by the change of for example "ph" to "f". They believe that, to stay with this example, Photo looks "more right" and is therefore of higher aesthetic value than "Foto". Still now the majority of people, who had gained their knowledge about German orthography before the reform either struggle with the now correct way of spelling or, like Guenter Grass, refuse to learn about it. Since there are no major changes made this doesn’t create a huge problem. Even if one might not be familiar with the new way of spelling he/she would still be able to read and understand written forms of German text without any problems. The reform is more relevant for teachers, children and foreign people who started learning the written form of German language after 1998, for students of college or university who have to write papers and essays or on other projects. It is also relevant for formal letters and for media, including books and newspapers published after this reform. 

     Reforming the English language, however, would most probably create different kinds of problems: Not only would people who already have a concept of English orthography have to relearn the spelling system but also would changes most probably be more striking than in German where there already exists a certain degree of phoneme-grapheme correlation (not as high as in the Turkish language, but still quite remarkable). To give an example: Where in English the consonants can be pronunced in various ways, e.g. the <i> in "fire" or "fist" the vovels in Germany are always pronunced in one way with the only difference in lenght. Changes of sound are indicated by a combination of graphemes as in <a> "Hase" and "Haus". In addition to that are most of all graphemes of German words sounded out when read, unlike the English "debt" or "undoubtedly".

     Another question to be asked is: Who would be involved into the changes? The importance of the German or the Turkish language is, regarding the world population and the globalization, rather minimal. English, however, is used in wide parts of the world, not only as a means of communication in the spoken but also in the written form. An immense amount of books and papers are published for informational, scientific, economic or political purposes and are read by a significant number of people all over the world. If now the spelling system was altered in a substantial way, an immense quantity of information would be inaccessible for a large part of the population and concepts of the English orthography would have to be relearned by many people. And apparently people are not always flexible or willing enough to make changes or to start learning things over as the German example shows. Another issue is that generations after a reform would be likely to have problems with reading and understanding texts that were written before changes were made. 

   The economic aspect connected with a potential reform must not be neglected: Street signs and names, names of products, soft wear programs and many other items connected with words or sentences would have to be altered or replaced – and that isn’t necessarily cheap. Who would be paying for it? The government would probably regard other things that have to be paid for as more important, for example the education system, social and health system etc. 

     Looking at it from a point of view that takes the cost-benefit principle into consideration I come to the conclusion that what has to be put into a reform of the English spelling system would not do justice to the outcome of such a project and is therefore not worth the effort.