The more I've read about language the more I've grown the sense that written and spoken language is orthogonal; spoken English wouldn't necessarily change were we to start writing it in Chinese characters for example. Writing isn't “language” per se, but a way we've developed of recording language.

“the” is not the word /ðə/, it's the way we write down the word /ðə/, and while most languages use an alphabet that roughly maps the sounds of a language to letters, it's almost never perfect and doesn't aim to be. I think this misunderstanding is what leads people to think a give orthography is “wrong” or “bad” (e.g. English, French) and end up create something even worse.

“potato” is a classic example. In a “phonetic” re-imagination of English orthography, how would it be written? There are multiple correct ways to pronounce it and so it can never be written “phonetically” unless you pick one pronunciation as “correct”. Orthographies cope with this because “potato” is not the WORD potato, it's just the way the word potato is written down.

I think a lot of this is reiterating jan Misali's video, Most English Spelling Reforms Are Bad.