I almost feel like English should start from scratch with spelling, There are basically no consistent rules at all. I think we should assign spelling to kindergartners who actually follow the rules of English and spell things like they should be spelled.
Quinoa -> Keen-wa
Ballet -> Baal-Eh
Design -> De-zine
etc.
I’d love to witness the chaos if English switched to IPA for spelling because of all the differences in accent and regional pronunciation.
I feel like it would fragment written English into something that is borderline mutually-unintelligible between different regions.
If you’ve ever read any old English writing that hasn’t been edited to reflect modernised spelling but instead it’s a wild mess lacking standardisation that you sorta have to read aloud as you sound out the words to make sense of them, like a kid learning to read, I think that’s what it would devolve into.
It would be super neat to have someone whose native written script is the IPA too - it would be fascinating to see how that shapes the way they see the world.