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.

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.

Related Topics:
English spelling - Middle English - Modern English - Great Vowel Shift - Phonology - Etymological

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Functional illiteracy has been reported as high as 20% in the UK compared with 10% in Germany and 8% in Sweden. Professor Seymour referring to the findings of the EU project "Learning Disorders as a barrier to human development" children need 2 and a half to 3 years to gain the same level of literacy that children acquire in a year learning most other languages. (Masha Bell: Understanding English Spelling p 115). This difference is attributed to the exceptional level of irregularities in English spelling.

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Modern English has anywhere from fourteen to twenty-two separate vowel and diphthong phonemes, depending on dialect, and 26 or 27 consonants. A simple phoneme-letter representation of this language with the twenty-six letters of the Latin alphabet is clearly impossible and multi letter graphemes are a part of most spelling reform proposal which is in any case in current English spelling. (As for example the first two phonemes of sheep are the diagraphs and .) Diacritical marks have occasionally formed part of spelling reform proposals.

Related Topics:
Vowel - Diphthong - Phoneme - Dialect - Consonant - Latin - Alphabet - Grapheme - Diagraphs - Diacritic

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Practicalities of devising a phonemically 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. That also neglects Australian, Caribbean English (in several forms), and so on.

Related Topics:
British English - American English

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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 British spelling from American usage. Some, but by no means all, of his suggestions result in the differences between American and British spellings.

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Spelling reform is parodied in "A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling". It is attributed to Mark Twain http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/87/2094.10.html who was actually a supporter of reform.

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List of leading spelling reform proposals

The reform proposals below are considered to be amongst the most likely to succeed for the following reasons:

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• They do not introduce any new letters or symbols, unlike the radical proposals of the Shavian and Deseret alphabets
• They rely upon familiar digraphs
• They do not introduce diacriticals (accents), which are not favored by English speakers
• 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
• SoundSpel SoundSpel™
• Cut Spelling
• Freespeling
• Stage 1
• New Spelling 90
• Saispel™
• Nuspelynh
• N'wenglish N'wenglish

Numerous other proposals exist. Perhaps the best starting point to explore them is The Simplified Spelling Society

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Successes in spelling complication

Some dictionaries of this time period also adopted false Latin etymologies:

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• 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:

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• 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 (phantasy is now only used as an old-fashioned affectation)

The 1806 edition uses some alternate spellings which did not gain acceptance:

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• 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 did not entirely abandon until 1975. Some simplified spellings of the 20th century have become widely accepted:

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• hiccough became hiccup (although this has not been totally accepted - hiccough is still used).
• interne became intern
• mediaeval (or mediæval) became medieval
• gramme became gram

Others were only accepted in certain regions:

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• sulphur became sulfur (dominant spelling in American English, IUPAC-adopted spelling)
• tyre became tire (tire is used in the U.S. and Canada, tyre in other English-speaking areas)
• programme became program (dominant spelling in American English and in the field of software)
• 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 International English)

Others survive as variant spellings:

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• aghast became agast
• prologue became prolog
• hearken became harken
• proceed became procede
• 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:

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• hockey became hocky
• cigarette became cigaret
• thorough became thoro
• definitely became definitly
• traffic became trafic
• tongue became tung
• subpoena (or subpœna) became subpena
• drought became drouth