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One more point: my kid is learning to read, and explaining words like "read", "read", "red", "lead", "lead", "led", "cough", "bough", "bow", "bow", "cow", "tow", "toe", etc., gets very old very quickly.

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You may be interested in the history of failed orthographic reforms in English; the Simplified Spelling Board https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Spelling_Board had significant popular support, especially among socialists and progressives, but ultimately failed, the only remnant being the "NO THRU TRAFFIC" signs seen in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English-language_spel... lists a couple of dozen people historically prominent. But nobody in English has ever had the level of political power that the RAE had in even 01815, much less 01726, so it's never happened.

NO THRU TRAFFIC has always stood out to me. I hadn't heard of the Simplified Spelling Board, but I'm interested in minimal subsets of languages, like Ogden's Basic English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_English. I use a variation of this as a model when starting a new language, and it's been pretty fun and effective.

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