The English language has too many irregularities that confuse schoolchildren and should be scrapped, according to a leading linguistics academic.

Spelling should be ‘freed up’ and the apostrophe abandoned altogether, says John Wells, Emeritus Professor of Phonetics at University College London.

In a speech to the Spelling Society, of which he is president, Prof. Wells blamed the country's literacy problems on the “burden” of the flaws of the English spelling system, reports the Telegraph newspaper.

He said: “In Finnish, once you have learned the letters, you know how to spell, so it would be ludicrous to hold spelling tests. In countries like Italy and Spain it's similar. But with English it's not phonetic, and there are just so many irregularities.”  

The linguist suggests bringing the English language closer to what can be seeing today in internet chat rooms and text messaging, turning for example “give” into “giv”. He also proposes embracing Americanisms such as “organize” with a “z”.

Most of the Telegraph readers seem to disagree with Wells, pointing out that the elder British generation had no such problems with spelling despite leaving school at 13. “My father, now 91, a farm worker all his life, left school at the age of 13. He could spell perfectly and his handwriting (though slow) was pure artistry,” commented one user on the paper’s website.

Another poster, John Hall, wrote that if English spelling is made phonetic, the alphabet would need 78 letters to encompass all vowels used in speech.

The Russian language, like English, is not a phonetic one. A major spelling reform was introduced shortly after the Bolshevik revolution. Although it was in use for 14 years, it was not an initiative by the new government. The reform had several letters excluded from the Russian alphabet and had many spelling rules changed.

There remains much debate that a new reform is needed to deal with the many words the Russian language has taken from English over the last 15 years.