Portugese alphabet expansion
Posted by Dave Bath on 2008-06-01
According to The Economist blog "Certain Ideas of Europe" in the 2008-05-31 "The Empire Strikes Back" article, the Portugese parliament has agreed to language harmonization with ex-colonies, notably Brazil.
Adopting the Rio accent, so to speak, means Portugal will also add three letters (k,z and y) to its alphabet.
What would this mean for the Englishes?
Perhaps our friends across the Ditch will have to forgo their planned rationalization of a 22 letter alphabet as they only need one vowel (yes, I’m joking).
Seriously though, English harmonization is a hugely difficult task, and may or may not be worthwhile. Already UML-standard comments are "Oxford" English, while US submissions to the UN need to be "translated" into standard English.
