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Revision as of 08:00, 11 August 2004 by 68.224.76.27 (talk) (→Successes in spelling simplification)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Natural languages often develop cumbersome manners of spelling words. Particular sounds may be represented by various letter combinations, while one letter may be pronounced in various ways. This is especially true of languages such as English that borrow heavily from other languages. Spelling reforms generally attempt to introduce a logical structure connecting the spelling and pronunciation of words.
Proposed spelling reforms range from modest attempts to eliminate particular irregularities (such as Cut Spelling) to attempts to introduce a full phonemic orthography. Stated reasons for these reforms include making the language more useful for international communications and easier to learn for immigrants and children. Opposition to reforms is often based upon concern that old literature will become inaccessible, or simple conservatism based upon concern over unforeseen consequences. Reform efforts are further hampered by habit and a lack of a central authority to set new spelling standards.
The idea of phonetic spelling has faced more serious criticism, on the grounds that it would hide morphological similarities between words that happen to have quite different pronunciations. This line of argument is based on the idea that when people read, they do not in reality try to work out the sequence of sounds composing each word, but instead either recognize words as a whole, or as a sequence of small number of semantically significant units (e.g. "morphology" might be read as "morph"+"ology", rather than as a sequence of a larger number of phonemes). In a system of phonetic spelling, these semantic units become less distinct, as various allomorphs can be pronounced differently in different contexts. For example, in English spelling, most past participles are spelled with an "ed" on the end, even though this can have several pronunciations (compare "kissed" and "interrupted").
This criticism is corroborated by the experience of some peoples of the former Soviet Union whose language was switched from the Latin alphabet to the Cyrillic alphabet, notably Moldovans and (Yiddish-speaking) Jews. Accompanying elements of "phonetization" severed etymological links between related words thus destroying certain subtleties of the languages.
English spelling reforms
English spelling contains many irregularities due to a number of factors. Borrowing from other languages is one of them; an even greater cause is the fact that English began to be widely written and printed during the Middle English period. While English spelling was relatively systematic during the Middle English period, the shift to modern English involved undergoing a Great Vowel Shift and many other changes in phonology. The older, etymological spellings have been retained despite major shifts in phonology.
Modern English has anywhere from fourteen to twenty-two separate vowel and diphthong phonemes, depending on dialect, and 26 or 27 consonants. Representing this language with the twenty-six letters of the Latin alphabet is going to be a challenge no matter what sort of system is chosen. Many digraphs or diacritical marks would be needed to create a phonetic spelling for English.
Practicalities of devising a phonetic-based system are also the target of criticism. The vowel inventory of British English and American English differs substantially, and many words are pronounced differently. A phonemic system would have to pick between the two. And that neglects Australian, Caribbean English (in several forms), etc.
A number of proposals have been made to reform English spelling. Some were proposed by Noah Webster early in the 19th century. He was in part concerned to distinguish Imperial British spelling from republican American usage. Some, but by no means all, of his suggestions result in the differences between American and British spellings.
Spelling reform is parodied in "A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling". It is attributed to Mark Twain who was actually a supporter of reform.
List of leading spelling reform proposals
The reform proposals below are considered to be amongst the most likely to succeed for the following reasons:
- They do not introduce any new letters or symbols
- They rely upon familiar digraphs
- They do not introduce diacriticals (accents), which are not favoured by North Americans
- They do not dramatically change the appearance of existing words
- There is an increased regularity to the spelling rules
- There is an improvement to the consistency in the way the vowels are sounded
Numerous other proposals exist. Perhaps the best starting point to explore them is The Simplified Spelling Society
A web based spelling text converter is found at: Text Converter It will convert any text into six different spelling proposals.
Successes in spelling complication
Samuel Johnson's dictionary of 1755 introduced "Saxon" spellings for English words, actually from French.
- music became musick
- critic became critick
Some dictionaries of this time period also adopted false Latin etymologies:
- iland became island (from the Latin insula, although island is actually a Germanic word)
- ile became aisle (also from insula)
Successes in spelling simplification
Noah Webster, when developing his dictionary in the early 19th century, advocated spelling reform and used many simplified spellings in his dictionary. The most commonly seen, which separate American English from British English in this area, are, from the 1821 edition:
- musick became music (musick spelling is no longer in use today)
- publick became public (publick spelling is no longer in use today)
- cheque became check
- colour became color
- plough became plow
- favour became favor
- phantasy became fantasy
The 1806 edition uses some alternate spellings which did not gain acceptance:
- isle became ile
- examine became examin
- feather became fether
- definite became definit
- thread became thred
- thumb became thum
Spelling reform managed to make some progress in the early 20th century. Most notably, beginning in 1934, the Chicago Tribune adopted many simplified spellings for words, which they didn't entirely abandon until 1975. Some simplified spellings of the 20th century have become widely accepted:
- hiccough became hiccup
- interne became intern
- medaeval became medieval
- sulphur became sulfur (dominant spelling in American English, IUPAC-adopted spelling)
Others were only accepted in certain regions:
- tyre became tire (tire is used in the U.S. and Canada, tyre in Australia and England)
- programme became program (dominant spelling in American English)
- catalogue became catalog (dominant spelling in American English, uncommon elsewhere)
- analogue became analog (dominant spelling in American English, uncommon elsewhere)
- cancelled became canceled (single-L common in American English; double-L common in British English)
Others survive as variant spellings:
- aghast became agast
- prologue became prolog
- hearken became harken
- proceed became procede
- gramme became gram
- socks became sox (remembered in the names of the Red Sox and White Sox Major League Baseball clubs)
- through became thru (informal or archaic, as in "drive-thru")
- night became nite (informal or archaic-- "late nite")
- clue became clew (archaicism)
- telephone became telefone (archaicism)
Finally, some never gained acceptance:
- hockey became hocky
- cigarette became cigaret
- thorough became thoro
- definitely became definitly
- traffic became trafic
- tongue became tung
- subpoena became subpena
- drought became drouth
German spelling reform
Main article: German spelling reform.
German speaking countries signed an agreement for spelling reforms in 1996, planned to be gradually introduced until 2006.
French spelling reform
Main article: Reforms of French orthography.
In 1990, the Académie française had unanimously approved the adoption of a new orthography. The current spelling would have remained correct, but in parallel a new rectified spelling would have been introduced. Containing a small list of minor modifications, the proposition of the Commission du Dictionnaire was inaccurately presented as a reform. The reaction of the public was a disaster and the "reform" was abandoned. The last major reform of French spelling goes back to the 17th century. Minor reforms occurred in the 18th and 19th century.
With much delay, the new recommended orthography has been introduced in France, Belgium and Quebec in 2004. The latest edition of major French language dictionaries have already incorporated the changes. The spelling of some 2000 words has been rectified.
See http://www.orthographe-recommandee.info/ (in French)
Russian spelling reforms
Main article: Reforms of Russian orthography.
Over the time, there were a number changes in spelling. They were mostly related with elimination of letters of the Cyrillic alphabet rendered obsolete by changes in phonetics.
When Peter I introduced his "civil script" in 1708, spelling was simplified as well.
The most recent reform of the Russian spelling was carried out shortly after the Russian revolution. The Russian orthography was simplified by replacing the obsolete letter yat with letter 'e' and eliminating the archaic usage of the yer letter (hard sign) at the ends of words.
Related articles
- Esperanto
- Simplified Chinese character for the equivalent of spelling reform in a non-alphabetic language