Why don't English directly use phonetic symbols as letters?

The spelling of native English words was formed in Middle English, that is to say, these word systems actually represented the English pronunciation before14th century, when English, like German and Spanish, was "what you see is what you get". But there are two things that make English look like this. One is the famous big vowel transfer, and the other seems strange but very important-yes, Gutenberg's printing. The time point of the great vowel shift is about1the end of the 4th century1the beginning of the 5th century, and it lasts until1the end of the 6th century1the beginning of the 7th century. The reason is that the Black Death killed many people, and at the same time, influenced by foreign words, it is easy to think of the sound change in this period. After all, if almost all the people used to the old pronunciation die, then the new pronunciation will occupy the mainstream in the crowd. The large shift of vowels causes the basic confusion of vowel pronunciation, including the vowel pronunciation before silence. The problem of orthography in English usually occurs at the vowel level, and only some consonants have changed obviously. However, we can't blame today's situation on the great vowel shift. If the orthography of English original words has not been completely recorded in the era of vowel transfer, then the situation may be reversed; Unfortunately, printing was introduced to Europe almost at the same time as vowel transfer. 1In the 1970s, Britain had a printing and publishing agency and began to print English books in batches-but the books at that time were written in the spelling of Middle English. It is not in vain to say that printing has influenced Europe. At least in Britain, the original printed English texts were formed according to the pronunciations of Old English and Middle English. However, due to the simplicity and high efficiency of printing, these words are widely spread, resulting in "you can't change them if you want to." Therefore, after vowel transfer and the formation of modern English, the British are faced with a split problem: pronunciation is modern, but spelling is not. This is why English pronunciation and writing are separated. Some people may say, what are you afraid of when you are separated? Just find someone to turn them off. This is easier said than done. Orthography has never appeared on a large scale since the formation of modern English. So far, no matter in Britain, the United States or other English-speaking countries, there is no official organization responsible for English orthography. We all know that French has the French Academy (yes, I'm going to tell a joke again: catching snails. Eat snails. ), Germany has the German Orthography Association, but no matter which English-speaking country, there is no nationally recognized institution that is fully responsible for orthography. /kloc-After the 0/9th century, that is, the era when large-scale orthography began in German, in the English-speaking world, even if someone put forward a large-scale orthography proposal, it was small-scale because it was not officially recognized. Like the United States, changing S to Z and ou to O can only be called changing the soup without changing the medicine. Compared with the problems faced by English orthography, it is nothing at all: have you ever met anyone who is determined to change the spelling of gh? Have you ever seen anyone make up their mind to change kn to N? None of this has changed. It can only be said that no one has the ability and influence to completely shake the mess left by Middle English. Orthography, like all other controversial major changes, has both great reasons and obvious defects: if it is changed, English spelling and pronunciation will be unified, thus facilitating spelling and learning (it is not that foreigners find English spelling troublesome, and Bernard Shaw himself thinks English spelling is an asshole; There are also reports from British parents that their children learn English as their mother tongue and German as a foreign language. Therefore, they learn German spelling well, but they often fail English spelling. If you don't change it, you can ensure the consistency of spelling in English, effectively reflect the early pronunciation (for example, the K pronunciation of the word knight in Middle English, and gh is also pronounced as /x/), you can clearly know the etymology (for example, the word restaurant is borrowed from the French stepmother), and it is also convenient to read classical literature (after all, classical literature is written according to Old English and Middle English). Defects are naturally the advantages of each other, and vice versa. It is precisely because these two problems are always intertwined that it is difficult for us to say what is the best way. What's more, in fact, the sooner you do orthography, the better. Because no one did it in the early days, everyone felt more cumbersome in the future. So until now, there is no completely unified opinion, which can only be shelved indefinitely. Then look at the International Phonetic Alphabet. The rudiment of the International Phonetic Alphabet appeared in the middle of19th century, and the International Phonetic Alphabet we use today was fully formed around 1989. After that, there were several obvious additions and deletions, but the impact was not great. The existing pronunciations in English are basically marks that have been included in the embryonic form of international phonetic symbols, including several spellings that do not appear in English, such as/? /(corresponding to ng) and/θ/and/? /(corresponding to the two pronunciations of th) If we choose to use international phonetic symbols to express English pronunciation when English first appeared, it is possible from the perspective of "feasibility". After all, there are relatively few homophones in English (relatively speaking, no, anyone who insists that I am speaking English without homophones is a rogue), and we can also identify them by context when listening, which is much better than the situation in Chinese and Japanese (the problem in Japanese is before the tone, and of course there is the correspondence between Chinese characters and pseudonyms). However, when the international phonetic symbols appeared, vowel transfer has passed 200 years. In these 200 years, there were literate English native speakers. Orthography based on English spelling has not been fully formed after several popularization. If it is changed to international phonetic symbols, many new words will be introduced. Do you really think anyone will agree? I often say that many things "have to be done, but you can't do it", but this time the situation has changed and it has become "have to be done, but you can't do it", because native speakers can't afford it and are too lazy to bear such a thorough revision. In the history of English-speaking world, only minor operations such as changing S to Z and ou to O were allowed, not to mention that it is very unrealistic to spell English with international phonetic symbols. First of all, the International Phonetic Alphabet is not a "naturally generated" character, which requires a one-to-one correspondence between symbols and pronunciations, so many "non-English" characters are introduced, and its intuition is very limited. When it was born, it was designed as a "professional tool" rather than a popular product. It pursues accuracy and reliability rather than simplicity, which completely violates the purpose of orthography. Is it/me/or/let the masses catch it? /,yes/ɑ/,/? /or /a/ enough to make many primary school students go home crying. Secondly, as the subject said, different variants of English will have different pronunciations, and even the same word will use different vowels. If the international phonetic alphabet is completely used for spelling, otherwise we will choose a basic pronunciation standard for unification-so that Glasgow can play Southampton first; Otherwise, you should follow your own spelling, so the difference between English and American sounds is negligible, while Australian sounds can give you another big vowel shift, which is probably something that all native English speakers don't want to see.