A movement to regularize a language's spelling system. In English, for example, the spelling system is widely perceived as being irregular, because of a relatively small but frequently used number of striking inconsistencies between sounds and letters. The irregularity was famously illustrated by George Bernard Shaw's mischievous spelling of fish as ghoti - f as in rough, i as in women, sh as in patient! Such variations in spelling patterns (one sound represented by several letters or letter-sequences; one letter representing several sounds) result from the disparate historical sources of English words, which have at various periods been influenced by Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Latin, Norman French, and Greek, each with its own conflicting spelling conventions.
The retention of such disparity has largely resulted from the conservatism forced on the written language by the needs of the printing press for continuity in spelling practices. This has led to calls for reform of the spelling system - sometimes for the complete replacement of existing symbols (as in Shaw's proposal for a new alphabet), more usually for a standardizing system, in which the existing alphabet is used in a way which more consistently reflects the correspondence between sound and symbol. Several dozen proposals were fully worked out in the course of the 20th-c. The main aim is to ease reading and spelling problems for learners and users of the language. The vested interests of the publishing world, allied to general public tolerance and conservatism, have so far militated against the widespread adoption of any new standardizing system.
Spelling reform generally attempts to introduce a logical structure connecting the spelling and pronunciation of words.
Arguments on Reformation
In languages written with alphabetic or syllabary scripts there is theoretically a close match of the script or spelling with the spoken sound.
People whose spelling does not conform to that of the standard language often suffer prejudice, since mastery of standard spelling is a marker of formal education or conventionally measured intelligence (however, people with learning disabilities may be poor spellers while otherwise having normal cognitive abilities).
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 latest DevaGreek alphabet, the Latinization of Turkish or Hangul in Korea. Reform efforts are further hampered by habit and a lack of a central authority to set new spelling standards.
The idea of phonemic spelling has also been criticized, on the grounds that it would hide morphological similarities between words that happen to have quite different pronunciations. 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).
One of the concerns in introducing a spelling reform is how to reflect different pronunciations, often linked to regions or classes.
English spelling reform
English spelling contains many irregularities due to a number of factors. 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. 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 (they are of a part of current English spelling as well, as for example the first two phonemes of sheep are the digraphs <sh> and <ee>.) Diacritical marks have occasionally formed part of spelling reform proposals in the past, but today they would pose a great difficulty for digital text processing and other uses of computers, requiring the replacement of most hard- and software, which is not feasible in practice.
A number of proposals have been made to reform English spelling.
Spelling reform is parodied in "A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling", which is variously attributed to Mark Twain, who was actually a supporter of reform, and to M J Shields.
List of English spelling reform proposals
Common features:
They do not introduce any new letters or symbols, unlike the radical proposals of the Shavian, Deseret and FonetikSpell alphabets They rely upon familiar digraphs They do not introduce diacritics (accents), which are not favored by English speakers and very problematic for computer use 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 Cut Spelling Freespeling Stage 1 New Spelling 90 Saaspel™ Nuspelynh NuEnglish SR1Numerous other proposals exist. Perhaps the best starting point to explore them is Saundspel
Successes in spelling complication
Some dictionaries of the renaissance period actually complicated spelling by adopting false Latin etymologies:
iland became island (from the Latin insula, although island is actually a Germanic word, compare German Eiland) ile became aisle (also from insula)According to Cornell Kimball , other words modified based on false etymologies include:
crumb, thumb, numb ghost, aghast, ghastly foreign, sovereign scythe ptarmigan rhyme ache, anchorSuccesses 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 American Dictionary of the English Language (1828):
colour became color favour became favor centre became center traveller became travelerWebster's first dictionary, A Compendious dictionary of the English language (1806), 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 This section may contain original research or unverified claims.Please help Wikipedia by adding references. Please view the article's talk page.
Spelling reform managed to make some progress in the early 20th century. Some simplified spellings of the 20th century have become widely accepted:
interne became intern mediaeval (or mediæval) became medieval gramme became gramOthers were only accepted in certain regions:
sulphur became sulfur (dominant spelling in American English, IUPAC-adopted spelling) 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 cigarette became cigaret 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 as in "drive-thru" or where space is at a premium) night became nite (informal or archaic — "late nite") clue became clew (archaicism) telephone became telefone (archaicism)Finally, some never gained acceptance:
hockey became hocky thorough became thoro definitely became definitly traffic became trafic tongue became tung subpoena (or subpœna) became subpena drought became drouthDutch spelling reforms
French spelling reform
Indonesian underwent spelling reforms in 1947 and 1972, after which its spelling was more consistent with the form of the language spoken in Malaysia (i.e.
|
Old spelling |
New spelling |
|---|---|
| oe | u |
| tj | c |
| dj | j |
| j | y |
The first of these changes (oe to u) occurred around the time of independence in 1947;
Japanese spelling reform
The original Japanese kana syllabaries were a purely phonetic representation used for writing the Japanese language when they were invented around 800 AD as a simplification of Chinese kanji characters. Despite this, words continued to be spelt in kana as they were in classical Japanese, reflecting the classic rather than the modern pronunciation, until a Cabinet order in 1946 officially adopted spelling reform, making the spelling of words purely phonetic and dropping characters which represented sounds no longer used in the language.
Norwegian spelling reforms
Prior to Norway becoming independent in 1905, the Norwegian language was written in Danish with minor characteristic regionalisms and idioms. After independence there were spelling reforms in 1907, 1917, 1938, 1941 and 1981, reflecting the tug-of-war between the spelling style preferred by traditionalists or reformers depending on social class, urbanization, ideology, education and dialect.
Portuguese spelling reforms
The original medieval spelling of Portuguese was mostly phonetic, but, from the Renaissance on, many authors who admired classical culture began to use an etymological orthography. In the early 20th century, however, spelling reforms in Portugal and Brazil reverted the orthography to phonetic principles. Subsequent reforms have aimed mainly at three objectives, with variable success: to eliminate the few traces of redundant etymological spelling that remained, to reduce the number of words marked with diacritics, and to bring the Brazilian spelling standard and the European-African spelling standard closer to each other.
In the early 20th century, Brazil and Portugal started talks on spelling reform to end the etymological writing system. however, Portugal made another "reform" in 1945, which restored some "silent" letters as in "facto" or "assumpção", which are spelled "fato" and "assunção" according to 1943 reform. On the other hand, Portugal is facing elections, delaying the use of the new spelling reform.
Russian spelling reforms
Main article: Reforms of Russian orthography.Over the time, there were a number of changes in spelling.
When Peter I introduced his "civil script" in 1708, based on more western-looking letter shapes, spelling was simplified as well.
The most recent major reform of Russian spelling was carried out shortly after the Russian Revolution.
Spanish spelling reforms
Spanish orthography is such that every speaker can know the pronunciation from the written form.
In spite of that, there have been several initiatives to reform the spelling: Andrés Bello succeeded in making his proposal official in several South American countries, but they later returned to the standard set by the Real Academia Española.
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