Ah I get what you mean Russ, quite frankly the use of w, x, q, y, j etc in your post would actually be better than what ido has done, as its probably more accepted internationally now thanks to chinese pinyin.
But yes it would be like reforming English spelling in one shot = destroy the literacy tradition of the written language.

To me both ido and Esperanto look artificial. The special accents above esperanto letters kinda dress it up so its harder to tell though if you're not familiar with letter accents.

ceigered:I think I could have lived with a 'y' system too,

Yes!! Obviously most of us just go with the circumflexes since that's part of the orthography, but I've been thinking of the y-convention lately, and it is rather cool. The x- and h-conventions (despite the latter being undeniably canon by Zamenhof) just don't strike me as pretty, you know? Granted, my affinity for the y-convention was influenced by its insistence in two certain styles of Japanese romanization, but come on, it gives a unique flair to Esperanto words.

neĝo > negyo
ŝiri > syiri
voĉo > vocyo
oraĵa > orajya
antaŭ > antauy

Hmm. Actually, I'm not so sure if that last one is satisfactory.

The last one could work if you think about it IPA wise like the dutch 'u' or French 'u' (which are /y/)

What I'd love to be able to type are those little ͡ symbols (the ones that look like there's some form of connection between two IPA symbols (I think it's from musical notation but I forgot what it actually signifies...).

Although I don't know how most fonts would support that....

Anta͡u mi estas granda t͡saro

(after saying that comment about fonts, Murphy's law came into effect).

(if the symbol doesn't come up properly, this is more or less what I mean but in IPA notation).

ceigered:But I wouldn't mind redesigning the ligatures... e.g. instead of having accents, doing something so the look like letters in their own right. wouldn't work with fonts too well tho.

Sounds like Novsignoj

Kraughne:The x- and h-conventions (despite the latter being undeniably canon by Zamenhof) just don't strike me as pretty, you know?

While not pretty, the h-convention is the most aesthetically pleasing surrogate system to me. I like names in the h-system better. Mihhaelo just looks nicer to me than Mihxaelo, but not Miĥaelo.

ceigered:To me both ido and Esperanto look artificial. The special accents above esperanto letters kinda dress it up so its harder to tell though if you're not familiar with letter accents.

I've never understood what the basis of judgments of artificiality are about. Maybe I didn't get a natural-language-detector when I was born, but to me all languages look alien if I'm not familiar with them, not just artificial languages.

I my opinion ŝ, ĉ, ĥ makes Esperanto a kind of - ehm - "sexy"? (hopefully to mention that word will not trigger any kind of profanity discussion now?) Furthermore I feel more comfy singing a song written with that supersignojn than this "x" or "h" style. It also shows me more cleary to use that special pronouncation. But - hhm, btw. on a deeper look, "h" writing style seems to be fine for me (with german native language) because I only have to think myself an additional "c" between let me say "s" and "h". Then I will get the same pronouncation like the german "sch" like "Sch..." (ŝ) - ehm "Sch...eibenkleister" (The stuff the workers used in early times to glue the window into the frame). Okay, honestly, it's the same like "S...ugar". You know. Ooops. Take care for that profanity issue.

Anyway/Egal/Wie-auch-immer,

btw. I use the optional keyboard layout tool from the austrian esperanto youth. But I heard this "EK" tool was updated shortly, too. Okej, MSWin only.

ghb,

Oŝo-Jabe:Novsignoj

Those look cool! Somewhat impracticle when hand written (as the Cx and Gx replacements resemble messy Z's and G's to me, and link-scripting the Hx alternative ends up becoming exactly how I write my D's, but that's my problem for writing D's funky! ). But if the whole language was written like that, that'd be AWESOME! (just off-putting to the unconfident learner). I personally think we should adapt the Helghast script to Esperanto (one players interpretation and handwritten).

Writing Esperanto in a script made for a game called "Killzone" though might not evoke the magical world peace image that EO currently holds

ceigered:To me both ido and Esperanto look artificial. The special accents above esperanto letters kinda dress it up so its harder to tell though if you're not familiar with letter accents.

I've never understood what the basis of judgments of artificiality are about. Maybe I didn't get a natural-language-detector when I was born, but to me all languages look alien if I'm not familiar with them, not just artificial languages.

It's possibly my own exposure to the different branches of language families. E.g. to me Germanic languages all look like heavily distorted dialects of each other, Romance languages look even more like dialects of each other, Slavic languages almost look the same, the Celtic languages look related to the romance languages, etc.
Same goes for language families like Chinese and Austronesian for me. Japanese is an oddity in my case in that I've been so exposed it sounds natural despite only sharing a vocabulary with Chinese at the most. In retrospect, I guess it's the irregularities in language which make them look natural, as often those irregularities were born through gradual evolution and sound change.

So unfortunately no inbuilt detectors, just personal experiences

qwertz:I my opinion ŝ, ĉ, ĥ makes Esperanto a kind of - ehm - "sexy"? (hopefully to mention that word will not trigger any kind of profanity discussion now?)

Nah sexy is fine, unless talking to 3 year olds who will proceed to call everything "sexy" Gotta love the double-standards of English colloquialisms!

ceigered:

qwertz:I my opinion ŝ, ĉ, ĥ makes Esperanto a kind of - ehm - "sexy"? (hopefully to mention that word will not trigger any kind of profanity discussion now?)

Nah sexy is fine, unless talking to 3 year olds who will proceed to call everything "sexy" Gotta love the double-standards of English colloquialisms!

Thanks ceigered. So I can sleep very well again. Hopefully one time I will grasp that non-definited english native profanity thing completly.

qwertz:Thanks ceigered. So I can sleep very well again. Hopefully one time I will grasp that non-definited english native profanity thing completly.

Haha good luck, I think even we English speakers wish we could grasp it too!

ceigered:

qwertz:Thanks ceigered. So I can sleep very well again. Hopefully one time I will grasp that non-definited english native profanity thing completly.

Haha good luck, I think even we English speakers wish we could grasp it too!

Okej, could be a reason to make that profanity issue clear in worldwide Esperantujo. Because how I can know what other cultures mark as a profanity? We are not to late and have to(?) discuss that.