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The Nature of and Alternatives to Standard English Orthography

Abstract:

Most people are not fully aware of all the problems with English spelling. They confuse the language with its traditional orthography and have a misplaced reverence for the antiquated spellings preserved in the dictionary.

This article reveals some of the absurdities of the spelling system used in English speaking countries since 1800, explains the difference between a language, a script, and a spelling system, and chronicles some of the attempts to "break the spell"* advanced by advocates of simplified and regularized spelling. 

In the abstract the solution to irregular spelling is simple. Just make it regular: Select a system of symbols that correspond on a one to one basis with the significant sounds or phonemes of the spoken language and offer it to the younger generations. Spelling simplification reforms have been successful in other countries which is why their scripts are so much more phonemic (i.e., consistent with the alphabetic principle)ⁿ.

In the past, while there was widespread agreement on the need to regularize spelling and simplify English orthography, there was little agreement on how to achieve this. Today, there is some convergence of opinion on how to bring the spelling system used by English speakers more in line with the alphabetic principle. This article explores some of the proposals that would remove the major roadblock to reading and to advancing English as an international language.

The Problem with TO (Traditional English Orthography)

English spelling is notoriously hard to master. While people have forgotten the problems they had learning to read, they continue to be aware of the problems they have trying to spell. What most people don't realize is that their problems are man-made. The horrendous orthography is a historical accident. Around 1700, the spelling of English became standardized before was regularized. Other countries have recovered from such accidents by implementing spelling reforms.

Today, spelling problems are almost unique to English. Its traditional orthography is more of a disguise than a guide to pronunciation. ¹ Compared to the spelling systems used in other countries, many of which use nearly the same Latin script, the code for TO (Traditional English Orthography) is unnecessarily complex, inconsistent, and irregular. According to Laubach,
 

"English is the world's worst spelled language." ²

 

Some of the absurdities of TO are captured in the following limericks³:

To paraphrase Paul Hanna, the basic problem with TO is an overabundance of graphemic options. The number of graphemically correct spellings depends on the length of the word. A 4 letter word can typically be spelled over 10,000 different ways, only one of which is orthographically (or rather lexically) correct. A two letter word, such as *in can be spelled ( 33x14 ) or 462 different ways. The /short i / sound can be spelled 33 different ways and the /n / can be spelled 14 different ways. In languages with simplified and regularized spelling systems, most four letter word can be spelled only one way. In countries with regularized writing systems, there is no such thing as a spelling bee. If the orthography is phonemic, any word that is correctly pronounced can be easily spelled.⁴

According to Ellis (Dewey, 1971 ), the eight letter word "scissors" can be spelled phonetically only one way [sizerz]. In English, it can be spelled 596,580 different ways. The initial /s/ sound can be spelled 6 different ways. The /i / can be spelled 16 different ways. The table in Fig. 5 lists the number of different ways each sound can be spelled in English. These are multiplied together to arrive at the over half million different graphemically correct options. Only one of the options is lexically correct.

English and Spanish use the same Roman alphabet. Spanish is consistent and highly phonemic. English isn't. How can this be if the Roman letters share more or less the same sounds in both languages?

A writing system consists of both the set of characters (the visible script) and the rules for combining them to represent word sounds. A writing system includes both the graphemes and the orthography or spelling system. Any language can be rewritten or transcribed into any script. For instance, English words can be rewritten in hieroglyphics. At uiuc.edu you can type in your name (or any other short word) and have the computer convert it to hieroglyphic signs (uniliteral phonograms). On the chart below, this would be a case of L1-C2-O1. The only thing being changed is the character set. English can also be rewritten using Portuguese orthography LI-C1-O2.

 

 

If any language can be rewritten using a different set of grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules, why can't the problem with English spelling be solved by simply rewriting it using the Spanish, Portuguese, or Finish spelling system? It can. However, in solving one problem this kind of solution creates another. In the following example, an English phrase was transcribed into the Spanish / Portuguese writing system. It solved the regularity problem but it changed the familiar word patterns of TO.

In the Spanish and Portuguese orthography, [e] = the /short e/ and that's about it. One letter, one sound. The /long e/ sound is represented by the letter [ I ]. In English, the /short e/ and the /long e/ are represented by the same grapheme. English adds to the confusion by letting the letter [e] represent just about any vowel. As shown in Fig. 5, the letter [e] can be pronounced 7 different ways.

In Spanish, the /long a/ sound is spelled [ei] as in *vein. In English, the /long a/ is spelled 36 different ways. It can be spelled [ei] as in Spanish and Portuguese, but it can also be spelled [a, ae, a..e, ai..e, aigh, au, aye, ah, au, a..u, au..e, a..ue, ea, . . .]. In Portuguese, the /sh/ sound is spelled [ch] as in *machine. In English, [ch] is one of 14 different ways to spell /sh/. To represent /ch/, Portuguese adds a T to their /sch/ sign yielding [tch]. Thus,

If regularity were the only problem, then it could be solved by using a highly phonemic script such as Spanish or Portuguese. However, converting to Portuguese orthography achieves regularity and the expense of familiarity. What many spelling reformers want is an orthography that will be both consistent and retain familiar word patterns. The problem, illustrated in Figure 3, is that English is so irregular that 30% to 60% of the words look strange no matter what phonemic writing system is used. Follick spelling, shown above, seems particularly wierd to TO readers.

As early as 1793, people such as William Thornton were writing,
 

English aut too kontaen a singul distinct mark oer kaeractur, az dhu representativ ov eech simpl sound hwich iz posibl for dhu human vois and breth too utter. Noe mark shuud represent too oer three distinct soundz, noer shuud eni simpl sound bee represented bie too or three different kaeracturz.

Inglish ot tu ka'ntein a' singl di.stinct mark or kera'ktr, az th' repra'senta'tiv ov ich simpl saund `wi.ch i.z posibl for x humn vois a.n breth tu, u'tr. No' mark shu.d repra'sent tu or thri di.stinct saunds, nor shu.d eni si.mpl saund bi repr'sent'd b'y tu or thri di.f'ra'nt kera'ktrz.

The first paragraph above, written in WES (World English Spelling), is an example of a highly phonemic script which preserves many of the spelling patterns of TO. "A chair" would be written "Ae chaer" in WES. WES does not disrupt old sight reading habits as much as the Follick spelling and CKS. Anglic, a variation of WES, comes even closer to TO by accepting 40 common irregularly spelled words such as *of and *the.

In Chekt Speling. apostrophe and [a'] represent schwa -  unstressed <uh> - as in [a'go'] .

In the next chart, the different English spellings of one phoneme /u:/ are enumerated. Nine different spellings of the sound common to rule, tool, and flue were listed by Soffietti . His list, shown in column one, is not exhaustive. Another nine spellings were added in column two. According to Dewey (1971) an exhaustive list from the American College Dictionary would contain 29 different spellings. As shown in Figure 3., a phonemic script such as WES (World English Spelling) provides only one spelling option:  /u:/ is always spelled [oo]. This means that *wooed would be spelled [wood] and *wood would be spelled [wuud]. The sound common to *wood, *could, *book and *foot would be spelled [uu]. OGD-positional spelling is usually the same as WES except where the /u:/ sound is at the end of a word or syllable.  The terminal /u:/ is spelled [u].
 
 

In traditional English orthography (TO) the same sound is spelled an average of 14 different ways

	TO Graph	TO TraditionaL Orthography	WES World Eng Spl OGD	Cut Speling	Chekt Speling Follick		TO Graph	TO Traditional Orthography	WES World Eng Spl	Cut Speling	Chekt Spelling Follick
1.	u..e	rule	rool	rul	rul	10.	u	ruby rooby	roobee	ruby	rubi
2.	ue	flue	floo	flu	flu	11.	ou..e	troupe	troop	trup	trup
3.	ui	fruit	froot	frut	frut	12.	ough	through	throo	thru	thru
4.	eu	maneuver	manoovr	manuvr	manuvr	13.	ooe	wooed	wood	wooed	wud
5.	ou	group	groop	grup	grup	14.	oo..e	ooze	ooz	ooz	uz
6.	ew	grew	groo	grew	gru	15.	heu	rheumatism	roomatism	rumatism	rumatism
7.	o..e	move	moov	move	muv	16.	ui..e	bruise	brooz	bruse	bruz
8.	oe	canoe	cunoo	cano	canu	17.	wo	two	too	to* two	tu
9.	oo	moon	moon	moon	mun	18.	o	do	doo	do	du

 Figure 3. Alternative Spellings of the /u:/ or /oo/ sound.

The table shows 18 of the 29 different ways that the /u:/ sound is spelled in TO. Cut Spelling reduces the number from 18+ to 8. Phonemic systems such as WES, CS, and NF reduce the number of different ways to spell a sound to 1. See Dewey, 1971,  for a complete list words illustration the different possible  TO  spellings for every sound.

By removing the letters which are irrelevant to pronunciation, Cut Spelling (SC), shown in column 5., reduces the number of possible spellings from 18 to 8 (u, oo, o, ew, ...). CS has two advantages: (1) It does not disrupt existing visual habits. Literate readers are not slowed down by the elimination of redundancies.⁵  (2) It conserves space. WES may use 2% fewer letters than TO; Cut Spelling uses up to 20% fewer letters (18.6% above). New Follick and Checked Spelling use about 12% fewer letters (19% above).

How irregular is English?
English can't be spelt. - G.B. Shaw

English was not regularized before it was standardized. As a consequence, "over 25% of the words have irregular spellings and 10% don't fit any logical pattern whatsoever" (Hanna, 1971). The situation is actually a little worse than the 25% statistic suggests but not quite as bad as the 92% figure that some have used.

The extent of irregularity one finds in English depends on ones unit of analysis. One could argue that since we have 500 symbols (including digraphs) to represent 40 or so sounds, English is (500-40)/500 or 8% phonemic. This would suggest that English is 92% irregular.

If one examines the phonemes (or single sounds) used by Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address, 75% are phonemic or regular. However, if one examines the 265 word address at the word level, only 106 (or 40%) are phonemic. What this means is that if the Gettysburg Address were transcribed to a more phonemic script, up to 60% of the words would look strange, e.g.,
 
 

Forskoer and seven yeerz ugo our faathers braut fortth on this kontinunt u noo naeshun... - Cf. Dewey, p. 16 -  Full Address words highlighted in red transcribe correctly Only 3 out of 15 or 20% are regular in this passage the rate goes up to 40% for the full 265 word address.

60% of TO spellings are not alphabetical Phonemes Syllables Words 75% 50% 40% Fig. 4.  Three Answers to the question "How Phonemic is English?" the unit of analysis can change the result

 In OGD-positional spelling the segment would transcribe with more correctly spelled words:
 Forskor and seven yeers ago our faathers braut fortth on thiss continent a nu naytion...
 OGD is a systematic but not a phonemic (1 sound-1 spelling) orthographic system.

Hanna's study of 17,000 English words showed that about 50% could be spelled correctly on a phonological basis (p. 122) and that 84% were spelled according to a regular pattern. For example, The /long e/ in *eel is spelled 20 different ways. However this study indicates that it is spelled [e] or [e...e] (72% of the time), [ee] (10%) and [ea] (10%). These four regular patterns account for 92% of the long-e spellings found among the 17,000 most frequently used English words. If regularity is defined in terms of absolute consistency or one and only one spelling pattern, then only 40% of the words are regular. If, on the other hand, it is defined in terms of having no more than four different spelling patterns, then about 84% of the words are regular.
 

How English came to be written the way it is
 

The heart of the trouble  is with our foolish alphabet,  it doesn't know how to spell  and can't be taught. - Mark Twain, 1899

Mark Twain took some literary license in his chautauqua speech. As should be clear by now, it is not the alphabet (or the character set) but rather the orthography or spelling system that is at fault. Unlike the orthographies of most other languages, the English spelling system does not adhere to an alphabetic principle.  The reason that the orthographies for other languages are more consistent is because they have been reformed.

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