Spelling reform

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.

Related Topics:
Natural language - Spelling - English

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It may be associated with other efforts of language planning.

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People whose spelling does not conform to that of the standard language often suffer prejudice, being seen as uneducated, lower-class or even stupid.

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Proposed spelling reforms range from modest attempts to eliminate particular irregularities (such as SR1) through more far-reaching reforms (such as Cut Spelling) to attempts to introduce a full phonemic orthography, like the Shavian alphabet, the Latinization of Turkish or Hangul in Korea. 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, the presumed suppression of regional accents, 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.

Related Topics:
SR1 - Cut Spelling - Phonemic orthography - Shavian alphabet - Latinization of Turkish - Hangul - Korea - Immigrant - A central authority to set new spelling standards

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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 (for example 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).

Related Topics:
Morphological - Phoneme - Allomorph - Past participles

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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. Accompanying elements of "phonetization" severed etymological links between related words thus destroying certain subtleties of the languages.

Related Topics:
Soviet Union - Was switched - Latin alphabet - Cyrillic alphabet - Moldovan

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One of the concerns in introducing a spelling reform is how to reflect different pronunciations, often linked to regions or classes.

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If the reform tries to be absolutely phonemic according to some model dialect, some speakers will find collisions with their usage.

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