英文应该简化么？

　　The Simplified Spelling Society (SSS) is celebrating its 99th birthday by launching a new campaign to make it easier to read and write English.

　　It may be the world's most universal language but linguistic experts say it has failed to adapt for the last 500 years and now half the globe's English speakers have difficulty spelling.

　　With texts and e-mails revolutionising（革命）the way we communicate, SSS secretary John Gledhill says the time is ripe for phonetic（语音的）reform and spelling simplification.

　　"Texts cut away the complications and take away the stigma（耻辱）of not being able to use an obsolete（陈旧的）spelling," Gledhill told Reuters in an interview.

　　The SSS message is simple: "You can change the spelling without spoiling（损坏）the language. People are scared of change and don't realise it is normal in language."

　　European children learn to read and write far quicker than the British, he said. Italians take just two years while the British can struggle for up to 12 years.

　　He said 40 million American adults are functionally illiterate（半文盲）-- for everyday purposes, they are not able to read and write.

　　Gledhill, who has a PhD in the history of Dutch consonantal（辅音的）spelling from 1100-1970, said the Netherlands updated spelling to keep pace with pronunciation.

　　"English is about the only language, apart from French, on the world stage that hasn't updated its spelling for 500 years. That is why it is in rather a mess," he said.

　　Note:

　　英文简体协会今年成立99周年了，在近一个世纪的时间里，他们都致力于简化英文拼写，方便人们阅读和写作。例如：enough可以被写成enuf。