Introduction

I've always been baffled by the incoherent spellings in English. Why spell the word "one" like that? Wouldn't spelling it as "wun" or "won" or even "vun" be more intuitive? Why are there so many equally plausible ways to spell a word anyway? And why were none of the more plausible ones chosen?^{pun intended}

Why did we devolve to write in the English script when we've had much better scripts all along? Compared to the beauty of the Devanagari Script it didn't make sense. The most plausible way to spell "one" in Devanagari would be वन. No ambiguity in the pronunciation, no doubt on the spelling.

Was there something intrinsic about the English script itself that made it the most prevalent script we read and write in? Or was it just European colonization that forced this adoption?

Below is an analysis of the virality of English script (and similar Latin languages) vs the Devanagari script (and similar Sanskrit derivative Indic languages),

Insights

Firstly, we learn to speak before we write. A child instinctively learns to speak by around age 2. They learn to read, write by age 5-7 but only when taught in school. The majority of humans have only learnt to read in the last century¹.

Secondly, writing was invented to communicate the spoken word. Otherwise we wouldn't have required alphabets to map to sounds. Humans primarily communicate via speech. Writing was a later innovation. It improved dissemination of the spoken word across space and time.

Analysis

English spellings are approximate sign-posts to the words being conveyed. The reader is expected to know the spoken language. For them to mentally apply spell check as they read using this knowledge of the spoken language. To translate the squiggles they see on paper into the closest known words they'd speak. This reduces the rules the writer needs to learn to successfully communicate.

This is in stark contrast to the compact, explicit and standardized codification of Sanskrit by Panini² more than 2 millenia ago. The codification provides an exacting map of the alphabet to their corresponding sounds. It ensures that the sounds of the vedic hymns are transmitted in high fidelity across generations. This ethos affects most indic languages and scripts, including Devanagari. The requirement makes the rules to read and write more involved.

Impact

English let go of the high fidelity sound transmission requirement. This lowered the barrier to read and write significantly. It reduced the alphabets and rules of grammar to be learnt. Which allowed the masses to adopt the language faster. Followed by a feedback loop of increasing readings and writings by the masses.

Scripts that became sticklers for spelling moved into the domain of court languages; meant to be read and written by the learned. Their low virality proved useful in restricting access to knowledge for the gatekeepers. But resulted in them being out-competed when English arrived on the subcontinent.

Corollary

There is an interesting corollary to this. Reading the English script relies on the reader knowing how the language sounds. This makes it harder for future civilizations to map text written in English to their corresponding vocalizations. Removing the additional rules allows for higher virality. But the language looses its robustness to be legible³ by alien or future civilizations.

Conclusion

For any meme to spread, its virality depends on both the environment and its core characteristics. Different memes will make different trade-offs between robustness vs virality. The memes that survive successfully navigate the variability in environmental conditions using their robustness vs virality trade-offs.

The English script reduces the rules to read and write in English. This core characteristic improves its virality relative to existing scripts in the subcontinent. But it comes at the cost of a drop in the fidelity of the transmission.

So if you want to write in a language that more people now can understand, write in English. But if you want to write in a language that people in the future can vocalize, write in Devanagri.

Footnotes