1 English spelling reforms

English spellingEnglish spelling (or orthography), although largely phonemic, has more complicated rules than many other spelling systems used by languages written in alphabetic scripts. The English language contains many inconsistencies between spelling and pronunciatio 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 EnglishMiddle English is the name given to an early form of the English language that was in common use from roughly the 12th to the 15th centuries— from after the Norman invasion by William the Conqueror in 1066 to before the introduction of the printing press. period. While English spelling was relatively systematic during the Middle English period, the shift to modern EnglishModern English is the term used for the contemporary use of the English language. In terms of historical linguistics, it covers the English language after the Middle English period; that is, roughly, after the Great Vowel Shift, which was largely conclude involved undergoing a Great Vowel ShiftThe Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of Germanic languages, generally accomplished in the 15th century and early 16th century, both in Europe and England. It represented a change in the long vowels i. a vowel shift). In English, the shi and many other changes in phonology. The older, etymological spellings have been retained despite major shifts in phonology.

Modern English has anywhere from fourteen to twenty-two separate vowel and diphthong phonemes, depending on dialect, and 26 or 27 consonants. Representing this language with the twenty-six letters of the Latin alphabet is going to be a challenge no matter what sort of system is chosen. Many digraphs or diacritical marks would be needed to create a phonetic spelling for English.

Practicalities of devising a phonetic-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. And that neglects Australian, Caribbean English (in several forms), etc.

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

Spelling reform is parodied in "A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling". It is attributed to Mark Twain [1] who was actually a supporter of reform.

1.1 List of leading spelling reform proposals

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

• 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 favoured by North Americans
• 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

1. Soundspel (TM)
2. Cut Spelling
3. Freespeling
4. Stage 1
5. New Spelling 90
6. Saispel (TM)

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

A web based spelling text converter is found at: Text Converter It will convert any text into six different spelling proposals.

1.2 Successes in spelling complication

Samuel Johnson's dictionary of 1755 introduced "Saxon" spellings for English words, actually from French.

• music became musick
• critic became critick

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

• iland became island (from the Latin insula, although island is actually a Germanic word)
• ile became aisle (also from insula)

1.3 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:

• 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:

• 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 didn't entirely abandon until 1975. Some simplified spellings of the 20th century have become widely accepted:

• hiccough became hiccup
• interne became intern
• mediaeval became medieval
• gramme became gram
• sulphur became sulfur (dominant spelling in American English, IUPAC-adopted spelling)

Others were only accepted in certain regions:

• tyre became tire (tire is used in the U.S. and Canada, tyre in Australia and United Kingdom)
• programme became program (dominant spelling in American English)
• 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:

• 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:

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

2 French spelling reform

Main article: Reforms of French orthography.

In 1990, a substantial reform ordered by the French prime minister changed the spelling of about 2000 words as well as some grammar rules. With much delay, the new recommended orthography received official support in France, Belgium and Quebec in 2004, but it has not been widely adopted. Some major French-language dictionaries have incorporated some of the changes.

3 German spelling reform

Main article: German spelling reform.

German speaking countries signed an agreement for spelling reforms in 1996, planned to be gradually introduced until 2006. It has however been largely ignored by German speakers, and the proposal may be dropped.

4 Portuguese spelling reform

In the early 20th century, Brazil and Portugal started talks on spelling reform to end the pseudo-etymological writing system. Because of delays, Portugal adopted the reform alone in 1911, resulting in a split between the orthographies of the two countries. In 1924, the Portuguese and Brazilian academies settled on an International Agreement. In 1931, a preliminary agreement adopted the new ortography in Brazil. But there remained many differences, leading to the new orthographic agreement of 1945, which would have removed the remaining differences; however, Brazil never adopted it. In 1971, some differences were removed. In 1986, Brazil invited the other six Portuguese-speaking countries ( Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe) to a meeting in Rio de Janeiro to address the remaining problems, but the results were not adopted. In 1990, these seven countries entered into a new agreement, to take effect in 1994. For various reasons, ratification was delayed in the nations' parliaments. But slowly, Portugal, Brazil and Cape Verde ratified the agreement; an alteration was made in 1998 in Cape Verde, which does not set a specific date to implement the agreement.

In 2004, the seven nations and East Timor, assembled in the CPLP, agreed that the agreement should enter into practice immediately in the countries that had ratified it, and to accept both orthographies. This led to the acceleration of the ratification process in East Timor and Guinea-Bissau. The old orthographies, however, continue to predominate in the respective countries.

5 Russian spelling reforms

Main article: Reforms of Russian orthography.

Over the time, there were a number of changes in spelling. They were mostly related with elimination of letters of the Cyrillic alphabet rendered obsolete by changes in phonetics.

When Peter I introduced his "civil script" in 1708, spelling was simplified as well.

The most recent major reform of Russian spelling was carried out shortly after the Russian revolution. The Russian orthography was simplified by eliminating four obsolete letters and the archaic usage of the letter yer (hard sign) at the ends of words.

6 Spelling reform of the Spanish language

Spanish orthography is such that every speaker can guess the pronunciation (adapted for accent) from the written form.

While the same pronunciation could be misspelt in several ways — there are homophones, because of the language's silent h, vacilations between b and v, between ll and y, and between c and z (and between c, z, and s in Latin America and some parts of the Peninsula) — the orthography is far more coherent than, say, English orthography.

In spite of that, there have been several initiatives to reform the spelling: Andrés Bello succeded in making his proposal official in several South American countries, but they later returned to the standard set by the Real Academia Española. Another initiative, the O.RR.L.I. , remained a curiosity.

Juan Ramón Jiménez proposed changing -ge- and -gi to -je- and ji, but this is only applied in editions of his works or his wife 's. Gabriel García Márquez raised the issue of reform during a congress at Zacatecas, but, with all his prestige, he got attention but nothing going.

The Academies however from time to time change several tidbits, such as allowing este instead of éste ("this one"), when there is no possible confusion.

7 Related articles

• Official script
• Esperanto
• Simplified Chinese character for the equivalent of spelling reform in a non-alphabetic language

Linguistics

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