>>46711749Several reasons. The most obvious is that English has incorporated many different words and root words from various languages over the years--Germanic words from Old English, French from the Norman conquest and rule of England, Latin and Greek for science and medicine, Spanish and indigenous languages from colonization, etc.
There was also no organized effort to establish a consistent English orthography (how sounds should be written). By contrast, if I write Pikachu (ピカチュウ) in katakana, Japanese orthography means there's really only one way to read it.
No orthography meant that by the time people were writing something resembling modern English, they just spelled shit however they felt like since there weren't that many literate people or mass audiences for the writing anyway.
Compounding the problem was a big vowel shift around the same time, changing what few conventions did exist. This is how you get shit like meat and meet.
I'm not an expert, but that's the gist.
