Alexander John Ellis

“ We assert most advisedly and deliberately, that the most consummate knowledge of not only Latin and Greek, but of Anglo-Saxon, German, Danish, Swedish, Norman French, Modern French, Arabic, or any other language from which the English has borrowed words, would never assist the possessor of them to the knowledge of how a single English word was spelt or pronounced. ”

“ We grant, our present heterography may be useful in tracing the history of our language, but so is the heterography of Chaucer and of Shakspere, and so is the Scotch heterography, so is the gradual change of heterography from the coming in of the Normans, nay, from the first writing of Anglo-Saxon until the present day; but ⸮does any one advocate their present daily use? No; they lie in old volumes upon the shelves of public libraries—very useful to those who are studying the history of the English language, very useless to every body else. ”

“ The majority of the so-called etymologists have contented themselves with merely assigning the language from which the English borrowed a word, but very few, and those only in very late times, and principally among our hard-working neighbours, the Germans, have raised themselves above this word-grubbing, which is, both in practice and result, tedious and worthless, and have looked at etymology in a new and more scientific light ”

“ It contains not the English language, but what somebody thought, at some time or other, would be a possible representative of what he considered to be the English language, by symbols which he knew to be inefficient. The English language—the true, existing, spoken English language, is as yet an unwritten language, and has, therefore, not yet become the subject of etymological investigation; it is reserved to later times, to etymologists who have the advantage of a phonetic alphabet, to inquire seriously and truly into the etymology of our spoken language. ”

“ We are sorry that there is an ambiguity in the expression "unlike their orthography." If the editor means "unlike the orthographical or alphabet names of the letters," the remark is, perhaps, just; but in no language is the same sound more regularly and consistently given to the same combination of letters, whenever it occurs, than in French, although this combination may be passing strange. Hence there is hardly any language in which a foreigner may be more sure of the pronunciation from a mere inspection of the word; while there is none in which he will be so uncertain as the English. ”

“ After two generations, should Phonotypy succeed at all, the number of those who study heterotypy will be few; while there will always be, from the commencement of the success of Phonotypy, an immense number of persons who will never trouble their heads about heterotypy at all, and who would never have learned to read at all but for Phonotypy. ”

“ Additional millions will become able to learn the thoughts of others by the introduction of a system of spelling which (apparently) sets etymology at nought; only a few hundreds will derive any pleasure from the prosecution of etymological studies, and those few may take upon themselves the trouble of learning the old as well as the new alphabet; while, if they have already learnt the old, ten minutes' study will be sufficient for them to acquire the new. ”

“ The context can hardly fail to determine which of the meanings of a word is intended; and if the context does not suffice, it is the fault of the speaker or writer, and shows that he is not sufficiently master of the language in which he is endeavouring to deliver his ideas. ↑ This is not absolutely true, but the difference is entirely in favour of Phonotypy. If the reader will cast his eyes over the Tables so often referred to, he will find that, in almost every instance, the phonetic spelling of any given word occupies less space than the heterotypic. ”

“ In order to learn to write and read our own modern living language, which we have spoken from childhood—in order to appreciate the system employed in representing it upon paper, we are to acquire a considerable knowledge of two foreign ancient dead languages, the pronunciation of which no one knows, and all dispute about!! ”

“ We are aware that it is considered a beauty in the language, by some people, that we do make a difference in the heterography, on certain occasions, corresponding to a change of meaning in the word, although we make no difference in speaking. We grant to the full that it might be a great advantage to the language if a different sound were employed for the conveyance of a different idea ”

“ The teacher never thinks of placing before him a list of the sounds of the language, and their heterotypic representatives, because it would be impossible for the strongest memory to recollect all the rules which such a method would require. The child is simply set to learn by heart the mode of spelling every single word in the language, column after column, as given in a school dictionary!! ”

“ Our language, which is about the simplest, in its grammatical construction, of any in the world, will be rendered accessible to the whole of mankind, and will be much more extensively read and spoken. ”

“ Independently of those words which have a difference in heterography corresponding to a difference in meaning, there is an immense number of words which have totally different meanings, but are the same in orthography and in pronunciation; thus,
By the help of a dictionary, this list may be extended almost infinitely, as nearly every word in our language has one or two meanings, some being clearly derived from an original one, others barely traceable to obscure analogies, and others apparently derived from perfectly different roots. ”

“ We must own that, in our ignorance, we are content to suppose that a person's name is what he tells us it is, and that, if we write it in such a manner that any one who sees it will pronounce it in the same manner as its owner, we really and indeed write his name, and our spelling is correct, his false. ”

“ This table will serve then to show the meaning of our phonotypes; but in order to make the distinction between heterotypy and phonotypy more apparent, we shall give the phonotypic representation of each word chosen to illustrate the mode of spelling, immediately after the words themselves, in such a manner that the eye can glance without trouble from one to the other. Finally, in a third column, we place figures to show the number of representations of this sound which we have found in English, in order that the number of orthographical expedients may be properly appreciated. ”

“ Language is a collection of sounds representing ideas; alphabetical writing, a mode of symbolizing the sounds of language. The latter is not responsible for the errors of the former, any more than a mirror is responsible for reflecting disagreeable objects when placed before it. If we wish to have pleasant objects reflected, pleasant objects must be presented; if we wish to have an alphabetically written language, which shall admit of no ambiguities, we must have a spoken one which attains the same object. ”

“ Would you seal up, against future generations, the knowledge of their forefathers, or condemn them to acquire it at an enormous expenditure of capital? The thing cannot be done; you must give up your scheme, for it will not pay. ”

“ We subjoin a few heterotypic enormities which might be committed and justified by those learned in the quips and cranks of our "just method of spelling words." The ignorant would naturally be more phonetic in his vagaries. ”

“ And because we feel no trouble in reading words, with which we are familiar by having seen them thousands of times in our lives, we overlook the fact that every one who sees them for the first time will have the greatest difficulty in discovering what sounds they represent. ”

“ If phonotypy be generally used,
1. Children, of six or eight years old, will be able to learn to read in a week.
2. Those who can now read heterotypy will learn to read in ten minutes.
3. No difficulty will be experienced in spelling any word which can be pronounced with accuracy.
4. No doubt will be experienced as to the proper pronunciation of any word which meets the eye.
5. Every one will be able to spell as correctly as he pronounces.
6. Foreigners will never be led into any errors of pronunciation by the orthography of words. ”

“ Assuming the argument to hold universally then, we assert it to be worthless, because of the very limited number to whom it could apply; but we utterly and entirely deny its universality; nay, we deny, in toto, that the present heterography of the English language is sufficient to lead us to its etymology, and that, if a phonetical orthography were substituted, the etymology would be obscured. ”

“ Most amazing caricature of a written language! ⸮And what is the result? No one spells correctly; many spell wretchedly; but no one is at all times certain of the proper mode of spelling any given word. For there is not even method in this madness. Words of precisely the same sound are spelt in the most different manners—words of different sounds are spelt in the same manner. Of these two cases, the following examples occur to us immediately. We give the phonetic representative of the sound, followed by =, and the heterotypic spellings ”

“ The average above given does not place the amount of evil in the true light. There is not one single sound in our language which is on all occasions represented by one uniform letter or combination of letters. Of the 14 vowel sounds, 4 only, namely, a, ɑ, o, ꞷ, are represented in a less number of modes than 10 each; of the remaining 10 vowels, only 3, namely, æ, ɵ, ų, have less than 15 different representatives, and the remaining 7, which are the very frequently occurring vowels ɩ, i, ɛ, e, u, ɷ, ɯ, have from 15 to 23 equivalents each!!! ”

“ Missionaries to foreign countries find the greatest difficulty in reducing to writing the dialects of the barbarous tribes which they are endeavouring to civilize; and travellers and geographers seem quite at a loss for a means of conveying the names of places which they have visited or described, the strange medleys of letters which they furnish being in general ludicrously unintelligible. ”

“ When we recollect that the sounds only strike the ear, and that these sounds are readily discriminated into the 43 different simple and compound elements of the phonotypic alphabet, it is appalling to think that we are left to choose out of very nearly 9 different heterotypic modes of noting any one of these sounds! Thus, if a word contain only 6 elements, as "sizurz," we may expect to have , or 464,404 different ways of spelling this simple word; it so happens, however, that the sounds in the word we have chosen, admit of being spelt in more than the average number of ways each ”

“ And if it be said, that it is only the manual labour class who will thus be excluded, we have to reply, without entering into further particulars, that the number of females exceeds the number of males by 348,364, and that of the whole number of females, whatever be their station in life, not 1,000 can be supposed at any time to have been taught Latin and Greek, and of these, of course, a very large proportion, fully as large as that among the males, do not belong to the manual labour class. ”

“ Let a few take an interest in them, and pursue them till they arrive at results, (such as the important ethnological facts which have been lately established,) and the world will take an interest in these results, although it cares not for the process of discovery; and of all people, those who prosecute scientific studies should be the last to exclude light from others. ”

“ For what the writer considers the theoretically best mode of arranging the letters, he begs to refer the reader to the "Alphabet of Nature," Part 1, in which the subject is entered into at great length. The English Alphabet will, however, in practice, be kept distinct, and arranged as in the first Table, and the Phonotypic Journal for June, 1845; while the Additional Symbols required for the extension of Phonotypy to foreign languages, will form a separate Table, as in the July Journal for the same year. COMPLETE PHONOTYPIC ALPHABET.
G. German; F. French; I. Italian; P. Portuguese ”

“ Again ⸮is it of importance to the great mass of mankind that they should know the history of the symbols which they employ to impart their thoughts to others, or is it not rather a matter of antiquarian curiosity, pleasant indeed, and highly gratifying to some intellects, and of great value in the prosecution of some particular studies, in which, however, the world at large takes but little interest? ”

“ If we take the two first classes, amounting in the whole to 754,325 and add ten per cent, for the residue and persons engaged in other pursuits, thus taking 829,757 or in round numbers one million of persons, we have the very utmost number of those who can be supposed to acquire a knowledge of Latin and Greek ”

“ We justify this denial by the fact, well known to etymologists, that the etymology of a very great number of the
(32.) The English word understand is derived from under and stand, as every Englishman sees; the German unterstehen comes from unter, meaning under, and stehen, meaning stand; the English subsist from the Latin subsisto, and this from sub, meaning under, and sitto, meaning stand. Here, then, we have three words derived from roots whose meaning is precisely similar. Suppose the reader to be informed of this for the first time, ?what idea will he have of the meaning of these words? ”

“ That the first is false, is proved by the immense sale of new and cheap books, such as Knight's Weekly Volume, Chambers's Tracts and Journal, Murray's Home and Colonial Library, and numberless other libraries and cheap publications. There are not books enough in existence for the number of readers ”