Spelling It Out

Patricia Hodges

Most languages are not usually written at all and others, like Chinese and Japanese, are normally written in non-alphabetic systems i.e. characters represent whole words, syllables or morphemes (the smallest meaningful unit of a language) rather than individual consonant or vowel sounds. Exceptions apart, the usual practice for representing specific words in writing is the spelling system as we know it. A phonemic system of spelling is the ideal, where each sound (phoneme) matches a consistent letter or letter combination. The Finnish and Italian systems come relatively close to this ideal; the English system does not.

The establishment of a standard spelling system in English was a gradual process taking several centuries and becoming, in the 18thcentury, a matter of general interest due to the spread of education. The reasons for the vagaries of English spelling are varied but linguist David Crystal (Spell It Out: The Singular Story of English Spelling, 2012) states that while 75% of English spelling is regular and predictable, the remaining 25% is influenced by historical factors, such as the introduction of the printing press.

Other historical factors include the influence of the Norman conquest when Norman scribes changed English spelling and introduced new spellings for sounds that later changed again, and many words have retained letters that were pronounced in Old or Middle English such as the 'k' in ‘knee’ or the 'gh' in ‘knight’. Other historical factors include The Great Vowel Shift which took place between the 15th and 18th centuries and caused pronunciation of long vowels to change radically. However, written English remained the same, the meaning of words ‘standardised' by agreed-upon dictionaries.

Historical changes apart, a factor for this instability is that not all English-speaking communities pronounce words in the same way, so a phonemic spelling system for one group would not be suitable for another group. Furthermore, many individual words are pronounced differently by different people; for example, ‘either’, ‘economics’, ‘library’, and many others. Indeed, Sociolinguistics recognises that every individual has a unique way of speaking (idiolect), which is a combination of personal history, education, and social background.

Ultimately, rather than seeing the English spelling ‘system’ as a design failure (as no doubt some people do  — particularly the wary, and weary, learner of English as a second language), we can accept it as a tricky business but one that hopefully increases linguistic awareness, sharpens attention to detail and reveals the intricate history and evolution of the English language.