The concept that could save the English language

Now, being of wog descent, I've taken some sort of interest in the two languages of my heritage - Maltese and Croatian -, espcially since I am studying Italian at Year 11 VCE level, which of course has given a lot of new information on the English language in turn.

Even better, studying Shakespeare in Lit. has given me an idea of what the English language used to be.

I got the main idea for this post a couple of weeks ago on a Sunday when I was randomingly foraging for food in the fridge.

Going to our grandparents the previous day, we naturally received enough food to feed the Bolivian armed forces.

Jump back to the next day.....

I noticed that my Masterchef-grandmother had given us some soup - Fair enough, whatever - but it was really the labelling on the jar that caught my eye. Labelled, "Šugar", I realised that the solution to the conundrum of the English language was the (re?)introduction of accent marks.

(Obviously, the realisation that she had put soup into a no-doubt-cleaned sugar jar didn't bother me at all)!

I'm no scholar - as of yet - but it seems to me when English was still a byword for, I don't know, pehaps backward-Middle French, accent marks abounded and pronunciation would have been way easier.

I could be entirely wrong here so I am perfectly happy to be potentially corrected.

(This is why I made the point about studying Shakespeare. - It is easy to see the influence of Continental languages and their associated idiosyncracies on the well-read Bard).

As the English language becomes more mechanical and scientific in its structure (euphonic??), I wonder where this leaves pronuciation.

(The influence of neo-Marxism on the English language must be left, sadly, for another post).

We all know that words like "sugar" and "sure" are pronounced "shoogar" and "shure", not "soogar" or "soore" - Clearly, the caron that my grandmother had inserted was meant to account for the "sh" sound in her native tongue - Croatian -, leaving the regular "s" for words like "silly" and "see' (obviously these words aren't Croatian but you get my point).

What would be the effect of (re?)introducing accent marks into the English language - beacuse, after all, it would have to be pragmatic, practical and important to (re?)ntroduce such sweeping changes into any language. Government departments would have to be the initiators of these reforms - staff would have to be retrained, software and keyboards would have to be recalibrated and circulars would have to be published on correct use.

Then, the reforms would spiral outwards: the selling of keyboards with accents would become the next big thing, with directors and owners potentially opting to sell their livelihoods because of the costs that would mirror those of the abovementioned-government departments. Then the education system would have to deal with these linguistic changes as well. (ACARA, anyone?)

Then the advertising to the general public. Oh God, the advertising.....

I personally would advocate anything to do with making the English language easier to pronounce. But where would the funding come from? The Department of Linguistics? Not gonna happen, mate.

I think it is important that language is practical and I do want to see the triumph of function over form when it comes to any language. Whether that outcome is decided by the rise of mechanics or the rise of accenting, I do not know, but one thing I can confirm is that gone are the days of pomp and circumstance in any sort of the text in the English language.