English-language spelling reform

For hundreds of years, many groups and individuals have advocated spelling reform for English. Spelling reformers seek to make English spelling more consistent and more phonetic, so that spellings match pronunciations and follow the alphabetic principle.

Common motives for spelling reform include making the language easier to learn, making it more useful for international communication, or saving time, money and effort.

Spelling reform proposals can be divided into two main groups: those that use the traditional English alphabet, and those that would extend or replace it. The former are more conservative and do not introduce any new letters or symbols. The latter may involve adding letters and symbols from other alphabets or creating an entirely new one. Some reformers favor an immediate and total reform, while others would prefer a gradual change implemented in stages.

Some spelling reform proposals have been adopted partially or temporarily. Many of the reforms proposed by Noah Webster have become standard in the United States but have not been adopted elsewhere (see American and British English spelling differences). Harry Lindgren’s proposal, SR1, was popular in Australia for a number of years and was temporarily adopted by the Australian Government.

Spelling reform has rarely attracted widespread public support, sometimes due to organized resistance and sometimes due to lack of interest. There are a number of linguistic arguments against reform; for example that the origins of words may be obscured. There are also many obstacles to reform: this includes the effort and money that may be needed to implement a wholesale change, the lack of an English language authority or regulator, and the challenge of getting people to accept spellings to which they are unaccustomed.

History

After the invention of the printing press in the 1440s, English spelling began to become fixed. This took place gradually through printing houses, whereby the master printer would choose the spellings "that most pleased his fancy". These spellings then became the "house style".^[1] Many of the earliest printing houses that printed English were staffed by Hollanders, who changed many spellings to match their Dutch orthography. Examples include the silent h in ghost (to match Dutch gheest, which later became geest), aghast, ghastly and gherkin. The silent h in other words—such as ghospel, ghossip and ghizzard—was later removed.^[2]

There have been two periods when spelling reform of the English language has attracted particular interest.

16th and 17th centuries

The first of these periods was between the middle of the 16th century to the middle of the 17th when a number of publications outlining proposals for reform were published. Some of these proposals were:

De recta et emendata linguæ angliæ scriptione in 1568 by Sir Thomas Smith, Secretary of State to Edward VI and Elizabeth I
An Orthographie in 1569 by John Hart, Chester Herald
Booke at Large for the Amendment of English Orthographie in 1580 by William Bullokar
Logonomia Anglica in 1621 by Dr. Alexander Gill, headmaster of St Paul's School in London
English Grammar in 1634 by Charles Butler, vicar of Wootton St Lawrence^[3]

These proposals generally did not attract serious consideration because they were of too radical a nature or were based on an insufficient understanding of the phonology of English.^[4] However, more conservative proposals were more successful. James Howell in his Grammar of 1662 recommended minor changes to spelling, such as changing logique to logic, warre to war, sinne to sin, toune to town and true to tru.^[4] Many of these spellings are now in general use.

From the 16th century onward, English writers who were scholars of Greek and Latin literature tried to link English words to their Graeco-Latin counterparts. They did this by adding silent letters to make the real or imagined links more obvious. Thus det became debt (to link it to Latin debitum), dout became doubt (to link it to Latin dubitare), sissors became scissors and sithe became scythe (as they were wrongly thought to come from Latin scindere), iland became island (as it was wrongly thought to come from Latin insula), ake became ache (as it was wrongly thought to come from Greek akhos), and so forth.^[5]^[6]

19th century

The second period started in the 19th century and appears to coincide with the development of phonetics as a science.^[4] In 1806, Noah Webster published his first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. It included an essay on the oddities of modern orthography and his proposals for reform. Many of the spellings he used, such as color and center, would become hallmarks of American English. In 1807 Webster began compiling an expanded dictionary. It was published in 1828 as An American Dictionary of the English Language. Although it drew some protest, the reformed spellings were gradually adopted throughout the United States.^[7]

In 1837, Isaac Pitman published his system of phonetic shorthand, while in 1848 Alexander John Ellis published A Plea for Phonetic Spelling. Both of these were proposals for a new phonetic alphabet. Although unsuccessful, they drew widespread interest.

By the 1870s, the philological societies of Great Britain and America chose to consider the matter. After the "International Convention for the Amendment of English Orthography" that was held in Philadelphia in August 1876, societies were founded such as the English Spelling Reform Association and American Spelling Reform Association.^[8] That year, the American Philological Society adopted a list of eleven reformed spellings for immediate use. These were: are→ar, give→giv, have→hav, live→liv, though→tho, through→thru, guard→gard, catalogue→catalog, (in)definite→(in)definit, wished→wisht.^[9]^[10] One major American newspaper that begun using reformed spellings was the Chicago Tribune, whose editor and owner, Joseph Medill, sat on the Council of the Spelling Reform Association.^[10] In 1883, the American Philological Society and American Philological Association worked together to produce 24 spelling reform rules, which were published that year. In 1898, the American National Education Association adopted its own list of 12 words to be used in all writings. These were: tho, altho, thoro, thorofare, thru, thruout, catalog, decalog, demagog, pedagog, prolog, program.^[11]

20th century onward

The Simplified Spelling Board was founded in the United States in 1906. The SSB's original 30 members consisted of authors, professors and dictionary editors. Andrew Carnegie, a founding member, supported the SSB with yearly bequests of more than US$300,000.^[12] In April 1906 it published a list of 300 words,^[13] which included 157^[14] spellings that were already in common use in American English.^[15] In August 1906 the SSB word list was adopted by Theodore Roosevelt, who ordered the Government Printing Office to start using them immediately. However, in December 1906 the U.S. Congress passed a resolution and the old spellings were reintroduced.^[10] Nevertheless, some of the spellings survived and are commonly used in American English today, such as anaemia/anæmia→anemia and mould→mold. Others such as mixed→mixt and scythe→sithe did not survive.^[16] In 1920, the SSB published its Handbook of Simplified Spelling, which set forth over 25 spelling reform rules. The handbook noted that every reformed spelling now in general use was originally the overt act of a lone writer, who was followed at first by a small minority. Thus, it encouraged people to "point the way" and "set the example" by using the reformed spellings whenever they can.^[17] However, with its main source of funds cut off, the SSB disbanded later that year.

In Britain, the cause of spelling reform was promoted from 1908 by the Simplified Spelling Society and attracted a number of prominent supporters. One of these was George Bernard Shaw (author of Pygmalion) and much of his considerable will was left to the cause. Among members of the society the conditions of his will gave rise to major disagreements which hindered the development of a single new system.^[18]

Between 1934 and 1975, the Chicago Tribune, then Chicago's biggest newspaper, used a number of reformed spellings. Over a two-month spell in 1934, it introduced 80 re-spelt words, including tho, thru, thoro, agast, burocrat, frate, harth, herse, iland, rime, staf and telegraf. A March 1934 editorial reported that two-thirds of readers preferred the reformed spellings. Another claimed that "prejudice and competition" was preventing dictionary makers from listing such spellings. Over the next 40 years, however, the newspaper gradually phased-out the re-spelt words. Until the 1950s, "Funk & Wagnalls" dictionaries listed many reformed spellings, including the SSB's 300, alongside the conventional spellings.^[10]

In 1949, a Labour MP, Dr Mont Follick, introduced a private member's bill in the House of Commons, which failed at the second reading. However in 1953 he again had the opportunity and this time it passed the second reading by 65 votes to 53.^[19] Because of anticipated opposition from the House of Lords, the bill was withdrawn after assurances from the Minister of Education that research would be made into improving spelling education. This led in 1961 to James Pitman's Initial Teaching Alphabet, introduced into many British schools in an attempt to improve child literacy.^[20] Although it succeeded in its own terms, the advantages were lost when children transferred to conventional spelling and after several decades the experiment was discontinued.

In 1969 Harry Lindgren proposed Spelling Reform 1 (SR1), which calls for the short /ɛ/ sound (as in bet) to always be spelt with <e> (for example friend→frend, head→hed). For a short time, this proposal was popular in Australia and was adopted by the Australian Government. In Geoffrey Sampson's book Writing Systems (1985) he wrote that SR1 "has been adopted widely by Australians. Many general interest paperbacks and the like are printed in SR1; under Gough Whitlam's Labor Government the Australian Ministry of Helth was officially so spelled (though, when Whitlam was replaced by a liberal administration, it reintroduced orthographic conservatism)".^[21]

A prominent spelling reformer in the 2000s is Masha Bell, who has published two books on the subject,^[22]^[23] written many published letters and articles, and appeared on radio and television.

Arguments for reform

It is argued that spelling reform would make the language easier to learn, raise literacy levels, and save time, money and effort.

Advocates note that spelling reforms have taken place already,^[24] just slowly and often not in an organized way. There are many words that were once spelt un-phonetically but have since been reformed. For example, music was spelt musick until the 1880s, and fantasy was spelt phantasy until the 1920s.^[25] For a time, almost all words with the -or ending (such as error) were once spelt -our (errour) and almost all words with the -er ending (such as member) were once spelt -re (membre). In American spelling, most of them now use -or and -er, but in British spelling, only some have been reformed.

Pronunciations gradually change and the alphabetic principle that lies behind English (and every other alphabetically-written language) gradually becomes corrupted. Advocates argue that if we wish to keep English spelling regular, then spelling needs to be amended to account for the changes.

Ambiguity causes confusion

Unlike many other languages, English spelling has never been systematically updated and thus today only partly holds to the alphabetic principle. As an outcome, English spelling is a system of weak rules with many exceptions and ambiguities.

Most phonemes in English can be spelt more than one way. Likewise, many graphemes in English have multiple pronunciations, such as the different pronunciations of the combination ough in words like through, though, thought, thorough, tough, and trough. These kinds of incoherences can be found throughout English spelling, and would naturally cause extra difficulty in learning and practice and lead to uncertainty due to their sheer number.

Such ambiguity is particularly problematic in the case of homographs with different pronunciations that vary according to context, such as bow, desert, live, read, tear, wind, and wound. Ambiguous words like these make it needful to learn the right context in which to use the different pronunciations and this raises the difficulty of learning to read English.

As an ideal, a closer relationship between phonemes and spellings may nix most of the exceptions and ambiguities and make the language easier to master. If done with care, such a reform would not impose an undue burden on mature native speakers.

We should undo the damage

Some proposed simplified spellings already exist as standard or variant spellings in old literature. These include frend for friend (see Shakespeare's grave, right), agenst for against, yeeld for yield, bild for build, cort for court, sted for stead, delite for delight, entise for entice, gost for ghost, harth for hearth, rime for rhyme, sum for some, tung for tongue, and many others. It was also once common to use -t for the ending -ed where it is pronounced as such (for example dropt for dropped). Some of the English language's most celebrated writers and poets have used spellings proposed by today's spelling reformers. Edmund Spenser, for example, used spellings such as rize, wize and advize in his famous poem The Faerie Queene, published in the 1590s.^[26] Re-instating these old forms would not create new spellings.

Some irregularities in English spelling are the outcome of attempts by scholars to "correct" older spelling by adding silent letters to show the word's Latin or Greek origin, or to try to link them with their Latin or Greek counterparts.^[27] Thus det became debt (to link it to Latin debitum), dout became doubt (to link it to Latin dubitare), sissors became scissors and sithe became scythe (as they were wrongly thought to come from Latin scindere), iland became island (as it was wrongly thought to come from Latin insula), ake became ache (as it was wrongly thought to come from Greek akhos), and so forth.^[28]^[6]

Many English words are based on French modifications (e.g., colour and analogue) even though they come from Latin or Greek. Spelling reform for sake of etymology should not be mistaken for phonetic spelling reform, even though both may come out with the same spellings.

Redundant letters

The English alphabet has several letters whose characteristic sounds are already represented elsewhere in the alphabet. These include X, C or K, and Q. As a result, some linguists^[who?] consider use of these letters to be redundant and inefficient.^{[citation needed]}

Obstacles and criticisms

There are a number of barriers in the development and implementation of a reformed orthography for English:

Public resistance to spelling reform has been consistently strong, at least since the early 19th century, when spelling was codified by the influential English dictionaries of Samuel Johnson (1755) and Noah Webster (1806).
English vocabulary is mostly a melding of Germanic, French, Latin and Greek words, which have very different phonemes and approaches to spelling. Some reform proposals tend to favor one approach over the other, resulting in a large percentage of words that must change spelling to fit the new scheme.
The great number of vowel sounds in English and the small number of vowel letters make phonemic spelling difficult to achieve. This is especially true for the three vowels /uː/ (e.g.: fume, moon), /ʌ/ (e.g.: blood, sun) and /ʊ/ (e.g.: look, put) which are represented in English by only two symbols, oo and u. Spelling these phonemically cannot be done without resorting to odd letter combinations, diacritic marks, or new letters.^[29]
Some inflections are pronounced differently in different words. For example, plural -s and possessive -'s are both pronounced differently in cat(')s (/s/) and dog(')s (/z/). The handling of this particular difficulty distinguishes morphemic proposals, which tend to spell such inflectional endings the same, from phonemic proposals that spell the endings according to their pronunciation.
English is the only one of the top ten major languages that lacks a worldwide regulatory body with the power to promulgate spelling changes. Such a body may need to be set-up before any worldwide co-ordinated reform can be undertaken.
The spellings of some words is so unlike their pronunciation – such as tongue and stomach – that changing the spelling would noticeably change the shape of the word. Likewise, the irregular spelling of very common words such as is, are, have, done and of makes it difficult to fix them without introducing a noticeable change to the appearance of English text. This would create acceptance issues.
Spelling reform may make pre-reform writings harder to understand and read in their original form, often necessitating translation and republication. Today, few people choose to read old literature in the original spellings as most of it has been republished in modern spellings.^[30]

Writing conveys meaning, not phonemes

The main criticism of many purely phonemic reform proposals is that written language is not a purely phonemic analog of the spoken word. While reformers might argue that the units of understanding are phonemes, critics argue that the basic units are instead words. Some of the most phonemic spelling reform proposals might re-spell closely related words less alike than they are spelt now, such as electric, electricity and electrician, or (with full vowel reform) photo, photograph and photography.

Cognates in other languages

English is a West Germanic language that has borrowed many words from non-Germanic languages, and the spelling of a word often reflects its origin. This sometimes gives a clue as to the meaning of the word. Even if their pronunciation has strayed from the original pronunciation, the spelling is a record of the phoneme. The same is true for words from Germanic whose current spelling still resembles its cognates in other Germanic languages. Examples include light/German Licht, knight/ German Knecht; ocean/French océan, occasion/French occasion. Critics argue that re-spelling such words could hide those links.^[31]

Spelling reformers argue that, although some of these links may be hidden by a reform, others would become more noticeable.

Whose accent?

Another criticism is that a reform might favor one dialect or pronunciation over others. Some words have more than one acceptable pronunciation, regardless of dialect (e.g. economic, either). Some distinctions in regional accents are still marked in spelling. Examples include the distinguishing of fern, fir and fur that is maintained in Irish and Scottish English or the distinction between toe and tow that is maintained in a few regional dialects in England.

Reformers point-out that current English spelling sometimes favors one dialect or pronunciation over others. For example, the first syllable in simultaneously can be pronounced like the first syllable in simple (/sɪ/) or like the first syllable in cycle (/saɪ/), but current spelling favors the former. Reformers point out that a spelling reform would only affect how we spell words, not how we say them. After a reform, English would still allow multiple pronunciations of a standard spelling, as it has always done. Some reformers also suggest that a reform could actually make spelling more inclusive of regional dialects by allowing more spellings for such words.

False friends

Some reform proposals try to make too many spelling changes at once and do not allow for any transitional period where the old spellings and the new may be in use together. The problem is an overlap in words, where a particular word could be an unreformed spelling of one word or a reformed spelling of another, akin to false friends when learning a foreign language.

For example, a reform could re-spell wonder as wunder and wander as wonder. However, both cannot be done at once because this causes ambiguity. During any transitional period, is wonder the unreformed spelling of wonder or the reformed spelling of wander? This could be resolved by using the old wander with the new wunder. Other similar chains of words are device → devise → *devize, warm → worm → *wurm and rice → rise → *rize.

Reformers argue that, even if this cannot be resolved, the resulting confusion would be less than what we suffer under today's spelling system, and furthermore, would be only temporary.

Spelling reform proposals

Most spelling reforms attempt to improve phonemic representation, but some attempt genuine phonetic spelling, usually by changing the basic English alphabet or making a new one. All spelling reforms aim for greater regularity in spelling.

Using the basic English alphabet

Common features:

They do not introduce any new letters, symbols or diacritics.
They rely upon familiar digraphs.
They try to maintain the appearance of existing words.

Notable proposals include:

Extending or replacing the basic English alphabet

*Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia* written in the Deseret alphabet

These proposals seek to eliminate the extensive use of digraphs (such as "ch", "gh", "kn-", "-ng", "ph", "qu", "sh", voiced "th", voiceless "th" and "wh-") by introducing new letters and/or diacritics. The impetus for removing digraphs is so each letter represents a single sound. In a digraph, the two letters do not represent their individual sounds but instead an entirely different and discrete sound, which can sometimes lead to mishaps in pronunciation, in addition to much lengthier words.