Vowels and Hearsay...

I have no idea if this is true, but I heard that in Arab schools vowels are removed from the text once the student learns to read.

I wondered what that would do to the readability of the English language. Would it improve? Think of all the different pronunciations we have for a single word - read, for instance. Hmmm... if it was spelled rd, it could be read, red, rod, road, rude... Reading would come down to deciphering context clues. On the other hand, there would be no more diphthongs, vowel-blends, short and long vowel structures and such for all the little primary kids to master... And think about what removing vowels would do to the page count of a novel!

I wondered again what it would look like. So here's something for you:

Mry hd a lttl lmb, ts flce ws wht s snw,
nd vrywhr tht Mry wnt, th lmb ws sr t g.

Did you get it? Try this:

W hld ths trths t b slf-vdnt, tht ll mn r crtd ql, tht thy r ndwd b thr Crtor wth crtn nlnbl Rghts, tht mng ths r Lf, Lbrty, nd th prst f Hppnss. Tht t scr ths rghts, Gvrnmnts r nstttd mng Mn, drvng thr jst pwrs frm th cnsnt f th gvrnd...

A little harder?

As I look at it I'm realizing my son already writes likes this. It's called text-messaging!