I would add that I am very unimpressed with most efforts to preserve
non-phonetic habits in a phonetic alphabet. For example, many reformers
blanch at abandoning 's' as the sign of the plural, even when 'z' is
the actual sound. But I see no reason why 's' is a better choice than
'z'. In the long run, phonetic spelling is more elegant and useful than
any spelling based on some non-phonetic principle. But even I have
found that the displacement of 'e' used as vowel marker is very
soothing to the nerves of those accustomed to the traditional spelling,
and is really not too anti-phonetic, since English has no words that I
am aware of with the short final 'e'. But if one encounters such as
word, the 'e' should take the diaeresis to show that it is pronounced,
and is not vowel-marker 'e'.
French by the way can be written phonetically using only the 26 Latin
letters, with no digraphs whatever, if one represents the nasalization
by H and confounds the open and closed vowels, which are no longer
phonemic in Parisian French. See my posts in French on this topic.
Also, modern Greek can be written phonetically using the 24 Greek
letters, with no digraphs, but with the medial form of sigma used for
the 'd' sound.
English, alas, requires the use of digraphs if the Latin alphabet is to
be retained.
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