Re:Shavian alphabet (Score 1)

Korean is not truely phonetic (dozens of sound change rules are needed to turn written language into spoken) nor is the alphabet identical to how it was designed hundreds of years ago (many 'letters' hve been dropped due to changes in the language and govermental 'simplifications'). It suffers from the same problems as Japanese, namely, to understand words that are not used in the minimal (2000-3000 word) vocabulary of ordinary speech you need to learn 3000-5000 chinese characters. A person in Korea may easily achieve basic literacy, but someone that is considered 'educated' in Korea can't get by with a simple command of its phonetics. It's considered one of the more difficult languages to learn for English speakers even though the basic grammar is simple compared to English (few irregular verbs, no verb conjugation, etc.) so cleary the fact that it's spelling is (somewhat) phonetic is not a true measure of the language. You're also ignoring the fact that the Korean approach to education is one that you could never use in the modern dumbing-down of the American educational system. Hours of rote memorization, yearly competetive testing for promotion to the next grade, only grades 1-6 are publicly funded, etc.