spell-bound

SPELL-BOUND

            English is known for exceptions to rules and inconsistencies between spelling and speech.  The question often arises: why not change the spelling system and spell words how they sound?  While it may seem that such a move would simplify matters, consider the complications.

(1)  In a hope to spell words how they sound, we could ask, "How do the symbols themselves sound?"  The Latin alphabet was borrowed to write English.   Latin's five vowel symbols do well for writing Latin's five vowel sounds, but when we use those five symbols to write the ten vowel sounds of English, the result is far from a perfect match.  Some dialects of English have more than ten vowel sounds, but for the sake of simplicity we will deal with ten.  Below, we list some of the spellings used for each vowel sound; then in parentheses we list the vowels having that sound, and the total number of spellings for that sound (the vowel symbols are standard linguistic orthography; e.g., Campbell 1999, xix; Beekes 1995, 270):

i: seat, receipt, reed, read, feet, feat, machine, sink, grieve, wavy (e, i, y; 7 spellings)

I: sit, rid, fit, busy, women, we’re, here, superior, myth, sheer, hear, weird, discipline, village

(a, e, i, o, u, y, that is, all five vowels plus y; 10 spellings)

e: sate, raid, fate, gourmet, chalet, feign, eight, great, say, day, guage, lingerie   (a, e; 8 spellings)

ε: set, red, fed, bear, bare, bury, marry, many, said, leather, (h)air, their (a, e, u; 6 spellings)

æ: sat, rat, fat, laugh, lather, cow, flower (a, o; 3 spellings)

a: father, bother, sought, rot, ensemble, sergeant, caught, cough, bought, buy, heart, car, lingerie,

            gone (a, e, i, o, u, all five vowels; 9 spellings)

ə: some, come, rut, fun, won, one, the, bulletin, compliment, women, woman, rough, flood, love,

            brother, photography (a, e, i, o, u; 8 spellings)

o: go, comb, or, ore, road, so, sew, though, flow, war, wore, worn, warn, sword, door

(a, e, o; 8 spellings)

U: soot, book, foot, put, full, woman, would (o, u; 4 spellings)

u: suit, boot, rude, do, move, two, to, too, womb, through, shoe, blew, blue (e, o, u; 10)

            Not counting dipthongs or vowel combinations, the vowel a represents seven different sounds of the ten English vowel sounds; e does eight of the ten; i is good for four; o yields seven of the ten; and u does five.

            A final silent e is supposed to make the preceding vowel long, but it often does not: discipline, vineyard, machine, gone, one, come, love, purpose.

            The glides w and y are semi-vowels, because they are similar to the vowels u and i, but so is English r and the so-called -er sound nearly a vowel sound, having little to do with e.  Any of the five vowel symbols before r can yield the er sound: solar, coward, sugar, her, fir, sir, favor, work, rigor, sure, fur, urgent.  Let r be the vocalic r symbol.  In Ute and Hopi, the vowel ö sounds like English r, such that iron would be spelled ayön.

            Note that ough has six distinct sounds: a (thought), əf (tough), af (cough), o (though),

u (through), æu (bough); and ou also has six: æu (house, sour, wound), o (pour), u (soup, wound),

U (could), ə (jealous), r (journey).  The sequence ea has seven sounds: i (beach, eat), I (hear, beard), e (great, steak), ε (head, bear), a (heart), ə (sergeant), r (earth).  Double oo has four sounds: o (door), u (boot), U (book), ə (blood).

            Considerable variety exists for consonants as well.  Our so-called sh-sound is represented by seven spellings: sh (shingle); ss (pressure, permission); ti (nation); s (sure, tension, question); sch (schwa); ch (chef, chivalry, machine); and ci (musician).  The k-sound has five: k (kite); ck (back); c (cat); ch (choir, mechanic); q (quiet).   Foot, phone, and rough denote three spellings for the f-sound.  Gentle, just, and edge show three for the j-sound; and azure, measure, sabotage, and equation show four for the zh-sound.  Three pronunciations belong to the -tion ending: nation (sh), question (ch), and equation (zh).  Then we tell school children: “Just sound it out!”

(2)        If we spell words like they sound, then many homonyms, now distinguished in written English, would be spelled the same.  Which spelling should we select for homonyms like once and wants; or one and won; or to, too, and two; or do, due, and dew; or doe and dough; or for, fore, and four?  We also have homonyms like worn and warn; and wore and war; but adding y to the last gives us wary, whose vowel is like wear; then add y to wear, and we have weary, whose vowel is like weird and we're, though were and worm exhibit the more usual r-sound of any vowel-plus-r.

(3)        Shall we spell foreign words how they sound—shevrolay—and obscure their origin?   And how far back is foreign?  Would we consider the Scandinavian loans they, their, and them foreign?  Would the Latin loans into continental Germanic count as foreign: mile, dish, cup, line, street?  Nearly 90% of the "English" vocabulary in an unabridged dictionary is from foreign sources.

(4)        English pronunciation changes vowel qualities as the accent moves back and forth in related words.  Should we replace photograph and photography with fotəgræf and fətagrəfy?  Or should we obscure that relationship and those of other related words like south and southern to sæuθ and səðrn?

(5)        The spell-binding power of visual perceptions or written orthography sometimes prevents us from hearing what we are saying: for example, not all English speakers realize that the th-sound is actually two sounds: one is voiced ð, as in this, and the other is voiceless θ, as in think, as different as z and s, or v and f.  Consider the following abundance of th-sounds: Heather and Dorothy close their thick math books because their mother thinks they should bathe their brother Timothy, though the weather lacks warmth.  Reversing the voicing of the two th-sounds yields: Heaθer and Doroðy close θeir ðick mað books because θeir moθer ðinks θey should baθe θeir broθer Timoðy, θough θe weaθer lacks warmð.

(6)        While our spelling system may seem archaic and outdated, the archaic spellings do give us insight into how the words were originally pronounced.  When English first became a written language, words were spelled how they sounded.  Thus, silent letters used to be pronounced: the l’s of walk and talk, as well as knife's slient k and e.  The previous reality of the silent gh in daughter is apparent in German tochter, Greek thugater, and Sanskrit duhitar. Compare know with its Greek cognate gnostic (knowing).   Changing the spelling would remove the historical hints of language ties and original pronunciations.

(7)        A change in our spelling system now would later become outdated after another century or two of inevitable language change, and the words would again not be spelled as they sound.  Would we then change the spelling system again and perhaps make this a bi-centennial event?

            Perhaps the alphabet does have us spell-bound or bound to the present spelling system, but ‘fixing’ it may create as many problems as it solves, if not more, and would certainly erase a lot of history.