The Emperor’s New Letters

When a Roman emperor updated the alphabet – and basically nobody listened to him. A common response to my profuse public pontifications about the history of the alphabet is ‘could we add new letters?’ With the phonemically faulty state of English spelling in mind, the question is one that I enjoy; it’s heartening to see people considering the alphabet not as a fossilised artefact, but rather as a living system, which any present-day generation can update to suit their speech. My answer to the enquiry is an enthusiastic yes, and I add that new members of the alphabet would draw strength from many historical precedents. Over their millennia-long development, our letters have in various times and places given rise to orthographic offspring. They often emerge gradually. Different functions and shapes can conspire to create two letters where there was only one before. J and U are examples within the English rendition of the alphabet, having emerged from I and V since Roman times.…