The chart above illustrates 18 of
the 29 different ways that the /u:/ sound is spelled
in TO. Cut Spelling reducesthe number from 18+ to 9. [o, oo, u, ue, u-e,
ew, oe, o-e, ou]. CS makes a few substitutions [y for igh]
but not many. Phonemic systems such as WES, NS, and NF reduce the number
of different ways to spell a sound to 1. See Dewey, 1971, for a complete
list of the different possible TO spellings for every sound. [another
chart]
Veblen wrote that English spelling satisfies
all the requirements of conspicuous waste. "It is archaic, cumbrous, and
ineffective..failure to acquire it is easy of detection..." On having a
spelling error pointed out, Andrew Jackson once remarked, "It is a poor
mind that cannot think of more than one way to spell a word." Spelling
is difficult, according to Harry Shaw
(Harper:
Spell It
Right! p.4) because "The correct spelling
of many words does not even approximate the sounds being represented."
Laubach
called English "The world's worst spelled language."
"Unless spelling undergoes reform, our spelling
may proceed to the point where many words become ideographic
as Chinese."
[H. Shaw]. Webster
thought it had already arrived at this point and that the alphabetic principle
had been all but abandoned.
Webster quote:
How many ways can a vowel letter be pronounced?
As the second chart shows, 7-9 different
ways in TO. While this is true, usually the first three ways usually account
for over 80% of the instances.
|
A Fonimic Aelfabet
for English
The Saxon alfabet: 41 foniemz-
17 vaulz
- 24 connsonants
A e,i
ago the
|
AA aar
caar
|
A. AE
aet catt
|
AI 'y
ais ice
|
A .U
aut out
|
B
bibb
|
|
Dh
the |
Ch tsh
check |
D
didd |
UR ER
hurrder
|
E. EA
bread |
EI ey
eys ace |
|
F
fetch |
G
gagg |
H. *hw
hu
rrdl |
I.
it tippy |
IE I .Y
yield si |
J dzh
judj jvj |
|
K Qu
kick quit |
L 'l
littl |
M 'm
maund |
N 'n
nvn |
.NG
singl |
O.
otter |
|
O AO
dog |
OA OW
owe |
OY oi
oyster |
P
pick |
R . 'r
roar |
S
sisster |
|
Sh
shipp |
T
tot tott |
Th thh
thy
thhai |
U. v
upp urr |
.U. .W
hwk hook |
U uu
guuru |
|
V
vatt |
W. hw
winner |
X ks
tax tacks |
Y. Yu
yess |
Z
zipp |
Zh
mezhr |
vowels-white,semivowels-gray, consonants-blue, digrafs-dk. blue
Irregular traditionally
spelled words are italicized, eye-ai, out-aut,
*vowels when not followedby
a vowel - wwln
=woolen more
|
9Real world writing
systems aren't perfect but few are as bad as English. Pronunciations
change over time and the orthographies of other languages have adjusted
their spellings to reflect today's pronunciations. English has never made
such an adjustment.
In England, around 1400 AD, there
was a pronunciation change so great that it is referred to as "the great
vowel shift." All language populations experience this kind of change and
the writing system must be changed accordingly if it is to continue tobe
any guide to pronunciation. Many English words may be written the same
as they were in the time of Chaucer (1350). Today's spelling tends to match
an earlier pronunciation.
Unlike most other languages that have undergone
several spelling reforms, English, a confused amalgam of 3 spelling systems
(Anglo
Saxon, Norman French, and Latin), has yet to have its first.
Spellings that reflect the way a word was pronounced in the year,1300,
are still with us.
41 English
phonemes can be spelled 561 different ways
41 English Sound Categories
*Dewey
used 41 phonemes. Other opinions as to the number
of phonemes in English
Sound (phoneme) | Total
number of spellings - 561 |
Frequent spellings - 361
The
/p/ sound can be spelled 5 ways and 2 are fairly common
The
/ae/ sound in *ax can be spelled 13 ways and 4 are fairly common
|
Consonants
|
|
Vowels
|
| Traditional Spellings |
key word |
|
Traditional Spelling |
key words |
| p
b
t
d
k
g
f
v
th
dh, x
s
z
sh
zh
ch
j
m
n
ng
l
r
w
y
h |
5
5
14
7
17
6
8
8
4
2
17
13
20
10
7
12
8
14
3
7
11
10
8
3 |
2
2
9
4
11
4
7
4
2
1
9
7
15
5
5
10
5
9
3
7
10
5
6
3 |
pipe
boot
tip
digits
korner
goad
flag
valley
thin, thigh
the, thy
snake
zig zag
sharp
azure
chick
jaw, ej
mound
nose
ingot
lever
run
wave
yoke
hurdle |
|
ae
a: aa q
e
ei e: air
i
i:
o q
o: [aw]
^ u'
ou o'
u. [oo]
u: [oo]
 'a
@
ai 'y
au
oi
yu U
17
vowels
24 con-
sonants
.
41
.Total |
13
16
19
36
33
23
11
17
13
23
12
29
43
22
7
7
18
342
219
561 |
4
9
10
19
20
20
7
13
10
19
11
19
23
14
3
5
10
216
145
361 |
ax, act, am
art, alms, ma
el, elbow, etch
avian, air, ape
it, index
eel, eat, me, ink, very
ox, pot, odd,
awe, hawk, caught
up, ton, a'go,a'cute
oat, poke (po'k), open
put, hook, full
ooze, hoop
acute, ago, data, herder
eye, ice, aisle
owl, how, cow
oil, boy, void
yew, few, ewe, fuel
20.7 spellings 5.26
per sound
9.1 spellings 3.54
per sound
.
13.7 spellings 8.8
per sound |
|
2nd column: Dictionary frequency -
different spellings found in a 70,000 word dictionary
3rd column: RF/SP = Relative Frequence: Number
found in 100,000 running words.
Compare to the studies of Paul Hanna (1966),
(Nyikos, 1988), (Carney, 1994)
and others
How many ways
can a vowel be pronounced in TO?
see chart
The traditional writing system spells
17 vocalic phonemes over 340 different ways but the 5 vowel letters are
associated with only 41 different sounds. The letter a,
as shown below, can be pronounced 9 different ways. The chart shows the
number of different ways that the other vowels can be pronounced. The number
of frequent pronunciations is about one less than the number shown.
Tha
[a] cann bi pronaunst nain different weyz. Tha chaart showz tha nvmbr
av different weyz thaet tha athr vaulz caen be praunst.
|
41 Pronunciations - 22 single
letter
|
a
e
i
o
u
|
9
7
7
9
9
|
5
5
4
4
4 |
ace, ax, calm,
all, about, air, kraut
eel, etch,
vein, resume, earn,
her,. err,
error
ice, itch,
kilo, amino,
pencil, circle
oak, silo,
otter,
ooze, cost, or, out,
color
guru, rule,
hook, wool, up,
urban |
complete
listing
Only
25 vowel sounds
|
17 phonemes - 340 graphemes
5 graphemes - 41 phonemes
|
How many ways can a vowel be spelt? 361
The typical
vowel can be spelled around
20 different ways. The total number
of ways was 361 in Dewey's analysis of abridged dictionary spellings.
In terms of words that one would frequently encounter, the number of different
spellings drops to 216.Other researchers have come up with slightly
different numbers, Yule uses 361. Coulmas [1998] uses over 1,000 basing
the higher estimate on research by Nyikos [1988].
The 361 came from a dictionary
with 70,000 words. The 216 came from an analysis of words found in 100,000
word of text which would involve considerably less than 70,000 different
words. 80% of the words we use comes from a set of 1000 words. [Thorndike].
How phonemic is English Spelling?
This question is asked a number of
ways such as, How unpredictable or irregular is English spelling?
There are probably several ways to measure predictability, regularity,
and phonemicy. The one below is among the simplest to do and understand.
The English language is 100% phonemic as are
all languages. A writing system that perfectly matched the phonemic
structure of the spoken language would also be 100% phonemic.
Shortly after England adopted the Roman alphabet,
they developed the West Saxon standard which was over 85% phonemic and
on par with the writing systems of any other European language. Today
the traditional writing system is only 40% phonemic. The connection
between spelling and pronunciation is worse than any other major European
language.
In the Gettysburg
address,
39.7%
of the words
were spelled phonemically. To state this in another way, 60% of the words
contain some irregularity. This means that 60% of the phonemically spelled
words would contain a sound sign that would deviate from TO and introduce
some "visual shock": e.g., Lake / Laek / Leik
There is no way for a consistently spelled
writing system to have anymore than a 40% overlap with TO. Even when the
most frequent spelling pattern is always used, 60% of the word spellings
will not correspond to the dictionary.
Some reform proposals have included some concessions
to TO such as allowing 40 of the Anglo-Saxon function words to continue
with their irregular spelling. 40 sight words are certainly better than
20,000. Other attempts to increase the overlap between the reformed spelling
and TO have resorted to positional spelling. That is, allowing more than
one way to spell the same sound.
There have been many claims such as those referenced
by Crystal indicating a figure of up to 85%. The only way that this
can be achieved at a word level is to allow up to four spellings per sound.
At the phoneme level, English is consistent 75% of the time.
As indicated in the table below: 47.5% of the
syllables are phonemic. In the full address, 74.3% of the sound signs
are correct. 74.3% of the phonemes are spelled phonemically.
See
The Trouble with Spelling
forskor @nd
sevan yirz agO Wr fqxrz brot forT on xis kontinant a
nU nASn... (Unigr@f)
3 of 15 consistent with
dictionary spelling (see OGD below which achieves a 50% consistent mark)
Forskoer and sevenyeerz
ugo our
faathers
braut fortth on this kontinunt
u noo naeshun... - Cf. Dewey,
p. 16 - Full
Address
words
highlighted in redtranscribe
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
andseven
yeers agoour
faathers braut fortth on
thiss continenta
nu naytion...
7/15
(50%)
OGD
is a systematic but not a phonemic (1 sound - 1 spelling) orthographic
system.
I would
like to conduct this same analysis for other languages but the lack of
a pronunciation
dictionary
in a full text electronic format prevents this from being done easily.
The issue is how
rule
based the orthography is and no orthography in use is 100% rule based -
there will be exceptions
What proportion of single sounds retain their TOgraphemes
in New Spelling. Among the 100,.000 most frequently used words,72.1%
of items are spelled phonemically in accord with the New Spelling criterion
when one allows that 8 to 42 frequently used short function words to retain
their TO spelling. (Words such as of,
the, to, I me...)
More
on the vocalization of English
In Paul R. Hanna's (1966, 1971) study of 17,000 English dictionary
words showed that 84% were spelled according to a regular pattern (i.e.,
one of 4-6 regular patterns) and that only 3% were totally unpredictable.
A widely sited figure is that English is about 75% regular. The count will
be different depending on the body of words studied. The dictionary will
show less irregularity than a study of the same number of words in print
(newspapers, etc.). This is because there is considerable repetition in
text and the irregularly spelled words are among the most frequently used.
Godless linguistics - pro-babelism
God Almighty created all languages complete when he confused mankind's
original language as punishment for our transgression at the tower of Babel.
But the athiest/lingusts don't want this mentioned in public settings
References
/ Bibliography
Augst, Gerhard. (1986) New Trends in Graphemics and Orthography.
Berlin, N.Y.: de Gruyter.
Carney, Edward. (1994) A Survey of English
Spelling. London: Routledge
Coulmas, Florian (1996) Blackwells Encyclopedia of Writing Systems.
London: Blackwell
Coulmas, Florian. (1989) The Writing Systems of the World.
Oxford: Basic Blackwell.
Cragie, William A. (1930) Problems
of Spelling Reform
Crystal, David. (1987) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Dewey, Godfrey. (1971) English Spelling:
Roadblock to Reading. New York: Teachers College Press.
Dewey, Godfrey. (1970) Frequency of Spelling. New
York: Teachers College
Eco, Umberto. (1995) The Search for the Perfect
Language. London, Blackwell
Gray, William S. (1956) The Teaching of Reading
and Writing: an international survey.
Unesco.
Hanna, P.R., Hanna, J.S. Hodges, R.E. & Rudorf, E.H. (1966). PhonemeGrapheme
Correspondences as Cues to Spelling Improvement, Doc.OE-32008,
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare.USGPO
Hanna, Paul (1992) Spelling: Structure and Strategies.
University Press of American
Laubach, Frank C. (1960) Let's Reform Spelling - Why and
How. NY: New Readers Press
Pitman, Sir James & Robert St. John. (1970) Alphabets and
Reading. London: Pitman
Pitman, Sir James. (1965) Communication by Signs, New Scientist.
25 (433) pp 580-1. March, 1965
Ronthaller, Edward and Lias, Edward. (1986) Dictionary of Simplified
American Spelling. New York: American Language Academy.
Scragg, D.G. (1974) A History of English Spelling. Manchester:
Manchester University Press
Shaw, Harry. (196-) Spell It Right! N.Y.: Harper
Smelt E. D. (1972) How To Speak, Spell & Read -- a
new way to Learn English, by E.D. Smelt (1972. Melbourne YMCA, 1 City Rd.,
South Melbourne Vic 3205. A later edition was I think called Speak,
Spell and Read English
Tauber, Abraham (ed.). (1963) Shaw:
On
Language. NY: Philosophical Library, (1965) Peter Owen Ltd., London
Longer
bibliography
vowels
- vowel-chart
q-ref
|
