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International English: a proposed phonetic spelling convention

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Introduction English has long held the status of the world's " lingua franca ". While Chinese is spoken by more people as a first language, English is by far the most common second language (in addition to its first language status in the UK, North America and Australasia and its official language status in many Commonwealth countries). It is regarded as the language of commerce and trade. While there have been attempts to create an "International English" these have focused things like limiting vocabulary and simplifying grammar. However I think it is self-evident that most people who speak English as a second language find its spelling the most confronting feature; vocabulary and grammar take a back seat (and take care of themselves well enough anyway). Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to propose a new "international" spelling convention. This is not intended to replace standard English (UK or US) spelling but rather to exist in