For centuries, many people have called for language reforms of English, which vary in approach from the radical (completely overhauling existing conventions) to the conservative (preserving most while removing irregularities).
Phonetic alphabets limited to English do not belong here. See Category:Phonetic alphabets.
Spelling reforms are attempts to regularize English spelling either by reducing the number of irregularities or by making it completely phonemic. This may be done using the existing basic English alphabet more uniformly (basic), by adding diacritics (diacriticized), by changing the number of letters (extended), or by replacing it entirely (replaced). Such historical proposals include:
| Name of work | Date completed | Creator(s) | Alphabet |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ormulum | c. 1150–1180 | Orrm | Extended |
| Gospel according to Saint Matthew | 1550 | John Cheke | Diacriticized |
| The Opening of the Unreasonable Writing of Our Inglish Toung | 1551 | John Hart | Extended |
| De recta & emendata lingvæ Anglicæ scriptione, dialogus (Correct and Improved English Writing, a Dialogue) | 1568 | Thomas Smith | Diacriticized |
| Booke at Large for the Amendment of English Orthographie | 1580 | William Bullokar | Extended |
| Logonomia Anglica | 1619 | Alexander Gill | Extended |
| The English Grammar | 1633 | Charles Butler | Extended |
| A New English Grammar | 1662 | James Howell | Basic |
| Benjamin Franklin's phonetic alphabet | 1768 | Benjamin Franklin | Extended |
| A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language | 1806 | Noah Webster | Basic |
| A Plea for Phonetic Spelling | 1848 | Alexander John Ellis | Extended |
| Deseret alphabet | 1847–1854 | Board of regents of the University of Deseret | Replaced |
| SoundSpel (previously Classic New Spelling, New Spelling, World English Spelling) | 1910–1986 | Various | Basic |
| Robert Bridges' Literary Alphabet | 1913 | Robert Bridges, David Abercrombie and Stanley Morison | Extended |
| Handbook of Simplified Spelling | 1920 | Simplified Spelling Board | Basic |
| The Global Alphabet | 1944 | Robert L. Owen | Replaced |
| Unifon | 1950s | John Malone | Extended |
| Regularized Inglish | 1959 | Axel Wijk | Basic |
| Shavian alphabet (revised as Quikscript) | 1960 (revised 1966) | Ronald Kingsley Read | Replaced |
| SR1 (Spelling Reform step 1) | 1969 | Harry Lindgren | Basic |
| Interspel | 1986 | Valerie Yule | Extended |
| Cut Spelling | 1992 | Christopher Upward | Basic |
| SaypU (Spell As You Pronounce Universally) | 2012 | Jaber George Jabbour | Extended |
| Simpel-Fonetik method of writing | 2012 | Allan Kiisk | Extended |
| Traditional Spelling Revised (TSR) | 2021 | Stephen Linstead | Diacriticized |
Subsets are reforms that use a restricted wordlist and grammar. English subsets include:
Vocabulary reforms seek to reform English by changing or restricting its words without changing its grammar.