English orthography

“ Indeed, it is not a little strange that the English language, which is one of the most advanced in grammatical simplicity, is one of the most belated in orthographic simplicity. In no other modern language is the system of spelling—if system that can be called which has no rule or reason—more arbitrary and more chaotic than in English; and no other peculiarity of our language does more to retard its diffusion than its wantonly foolish orthography. ”

“ Such would be the orthography of a new language, to be formed by a synod of grammarians upon principles of science. But who can hope to prevail on nations to change their practice, and make all their old books useless? or what advantage would a new orthography procure equivalent to the confusion and perplexity of such an alteration?
Some ingenious men, indeed, have endeavoured to deserve well of their country, by writing honor and labor for honour and labour, red for read in the preter-tense, sais for says, repete tor repeat, explane for explain, or declame for declaim. ”

“ Thus have I laboured by settling the orthography, displaying the analogy, regulating the structures, and ascertaining the signification of English words, to perform all the parts of a faithful lexicographer: but I have not always executed my own scheme, or satisfied my own expectations. The work, whatever proofs of diligence and attention it may exhibit, is yet capable of many improvements: the orthography which I recommend is still controvertible, the etymology which I adopt is uncertain, and perhaps frequently erroneous ”

“ English orthography never has kept pace with the written language. Before the invention of printing our spelling failed to reflect the modifications which took place in the pronunciation of our tongue and the printing press served to establish and stereotype the conventional spelling then in vogue, which the characteristic conservatism of the Anglo-Saxon race has ever since preserved in its crystallized, fossilized form. ”

“ The one essential thing to be insisted upon in the reform in English orthography is that it shall follow the path of reform of English orthography, no matter how far it may lag behind it. There should be no resort to temporary expedients which result in bringing out about a mere external uniformity at the cost of sacrificing the principle that the spelling should represent the sound. Furthermore, it must not bow down to the false god of derivation when such a course brings the form of the word into conflict with its pronunciation. ”

“ In response to this demand, and in order to facilitate the labor of the compositor and reader, a conventional mode of spelling was adopted and put into general use by the printers. Thus English orthography was taken from the direct control of the intellectual class who wrote books, and was turned over to a mechanical class who simply printed books. The intellectual class strove to make the spelling of our tongue conform to the pronunciation. With this object always in view English orthography was permitted a wide variation. ”

“ The consequence of those efforts in contrary directions is that French orthography is now quite as traditional and unphonetic as English, and gives an even falser notion than this of the actual state of the language it is supposed to represent. Many of the features of Old French orthography, early and late, are preserved in English orthography; to it we owe the use of c for s (Old English c = k only) , of j (i) for dzh, of v (u) for v (in Old English written f) , and probably of ch for tsh. The English w is purely French, the Old English letter being the runic þ. ”

“ No one, indeed, who comprehends what is required, in a language so lawless as ours, to bring about a perfect accordance between orthography and orthoepy, is ever likely to underrate the difficulties which stand in the way of the establishment of phonetic spelling, even were men as eager for its adoption as they are now hostile to it. ”

“ The word is a derived word; it is transplanted into our own language from the Latin, where it is spelt with a c (civitas) ; and to change this c into s conceals the origin and history of the word. For this reason the c is retained, although, as far as the mere expression of sounds (the primary object in orthography) is concerned, the letter is a superfluity. In cases like the one adduced the orthography is bent to a secondary end, and is traversed by the etymology. ”

“ Where there is no traditional orthography, as when Old English (Anglo-Saxon) was first written down in Latin letters, spelling was necessarily phonetic; but where there is a large literature and a class of professional scribes, the influence of the traditional orthography becomes stronger, till at last the invention of printing and the diffusion of one standard dialect over a large area occupied originally by a variety of other dialects make changes of spelling as inconvenient as they were once easy and natural. ”

“ English orthography satisfies all the requirements of the canons of reputability under the law of conspicuous waste. It is archaic, cumbrous, and ineffective; its acquisition consumes much time and effort; failure to acquire it is easy of detection. ”

“ The primal cause of the chaotic condition of English orthography, is the fact that the Roman alphabet, which was a perfect phonography of the old Latin language, lacked characters for four English vowels and four English consonants. ”

“ The spelling will be no more a guide to the pronunciation, than the orthography of the German or Greek. This event is actually taking place, in consequence of the stupid opinion, advanced by Johnson and other writers, and generally embraced by the nation.
All these objections appear to me of very inconsiderable weight, when opposed to the great, substantial and permanent advantages to be derived from a regular national orthography.
Sensible I am how much easier it is to propose improvements, than to introduce them. Every thing new starts the idea of difficulty ”

“ Orthoepy determines the correct pronunciation of words, and deals with a language as it is spoken; orthography determines the correct spelling of words, and deals with a language as it is written. The term is derived from the Greek words orthos (upright) , and graphé, or grafæ (writing) . Orthography is less essential to language than orthoepy; since all languages are spoken, whilst but a few languages are written. Orthography presupposes orthoepy. Orthography addresses itself to the eye, orthoepy to the ear. Orthoepy deals with the articulate sounds that constitute syllables and words ”

“ There are some classes of words of which this true; but let it be noted that no small part of the anomalies in the spelling of words, are egregious corruptions of the primitive orthography. Thus the present orthography of leather, feather, weather, stead, wealth, mould, son, ton, wonder, worship, thirst, &c. is corrupt; having been vitiated during the dark ages of English literature, under the Norman princes. The true orthography from the first Saxon writings to the 12th century, was lether, fether, wether, sted or stede, welga, mold, suna, tunna, wundor, wurthscipe, thurst. ”

“ English race will not be content to sit down forever with a system of spelling which has nothing to recommend it but custom and prejudice, nothing to defend it but ignorance, nothing but superstition to make it an object of veneration. An orthography which defies the main object for which orthography was created cannot continue, with the advance of knowledge, to be endured forever ”

“ A Figure, in grammar, is an intentional deviation from the ordinary spelling, formation, construction, or application, of words. There are, accordingly, figures of Orthography, figures of Etymology, figures of Syntax, and figures of Rhetoric. When figures are judiciously employed, they both strengthen and adorn expression. They occur more frequently in poetry than in prose; and several of them are merely poetic licenses.
SECTION I.—FIGURES OF ORTHOGRAPHY. A Figure of Orthography is an intentional deviation from the ordinary or true spelling of a word. ”

“ Here a genuine difference in sound conveyed to the ear was represented to the eye by a difference of orthography. The modern speech has made one of its usual compromises. It has retained the spelling of the one form and the pronunciation of the other. ”

“ To language students, of course, the evolution of our orthography is clearly traceable; but to the plain man of other nations, who has not grown up in English from King Alfred, nothing seems more witless, more grotesque, lawless and incomprehensible than our spelling, and its utter divorce from pronunciation. ”

“ The attention of the men of our race has been more than distracted from any consideration of the subject by the character of our orthography. Their minds have been thrown into a state of bewilderment. As a single illustration, take the representation of the sound usually termed “long i.” This third so-called vowel of our alphabet is not really a vowel, but a diphthong. Its sound is most commonly represented by the single letter itself, seen, for instance, in such a word as mind. ”

“ In answer to the objection, that a change of orthography would obscure etymology, I would remark, that the etymology of most words is already lost, even to the learned; and to the unlearned, etymology is never known. Where is the man that can trace back our English words to the elementary radicals? In a few instances, the student has been able to reach the primitive roots of words; but I presume the radicals of one tenth of the words in our language, have never yet been discovered, even by Junius, Skinner, or any other etymologist. ”

“ Their resistance to simplification ought to become less irreconcilable when the men of letters, now its chief opponents, have discovered for themselves that there is not now and never has been any stable system of orthography. When they really grasp the fact that there has been no permanency in the past and that there is no uniformity in the present, perhaps they will show themselves less unwilling to take the next step forward. ”

“ Price published:
‘The Vocal Organ; or a new Art of teaching Orthography by observing the Instruments of Pronunciation, and the difference between Words of like Sound, whereby any outlandish or meer Englishman, Woman, and Child, may speedily attaine to the exact Spelling, Reading, or Pronouncing of any Word in the English Tongue, without the Advantage of its Fountains, the Greeke and Latine,’ 1665, 8vo, Oxford. ‘English Orthography: teaching (1) the Letters of every sort of Print ”

“ The evil effects wrought on the orthography by printing, as contrasted with the previous method of manuscript reproduction, were largely due to the difference of conditions under [Pg 273] which the two arts were carried on. The early type-setters, indeed, had to encounter the same difficulties which beset the copyists of manuscripts. There were among educated men the widest diversities of pronunciation. No established literary, still less established orthoepic standard, to which all felt obliged to conform, could possibly grow up during the long civil strife of the fifteenth century. ”

“ The etymology, so far as it is yet known, was easily found in the volumes where it is particularly and professedly delivered; and, by proper attention to the rules of derivation, the orthography was soon adjusted. But to COLLECT the WORDS of our language was a task of greater difficulty: the deficiency of dictionaries was immediately apparent; and when they were exhausted, what was yet wanting must be sought by fortuitous and unguided excursions into books, and gleaned as industry should find, or chance should offer it, in the boundless chaos of a living speech. ”

“ American English is Comic English in a "pretty particular considerable tarnation" degree.
English Grammar is divided into four parts-Orthography, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody; and as these are points that a good grammarian always stands upon, he, particularly when a pedant, and consequently somewhat flat, may very properly be compared to a table.
PART I. ORTHOGRAPHY.
CHAPTER I. OF THE NATURE OF THE LETTERS, AND OF A COMIC ALPHABET. Orthography is like a schoolmaster, or instructor of youth. It teaches us the nature and powers of letters and the right method of spelling words. ”

“ Yet against the levelling tendency of an orthography which does not protect pronunciation, it is possible that the earlier sound of a in these words may not be able to hold out forever.
So much for the first vowel of the alphabet. We are as badly off, though in a different way, when we come to the second. It emphasizes the degeneracy which has overtaken our whole orthographic and orthoepic system that the name we now give to the first vowel was originally and still is scientifically the long sound of the second. ”

“ The orthography of printed matter necessarily reacts upon the orthography of the men who are familiar with it. These, when they come to write, will be apt to repeat the errors they have learned from the books they read. ”

“ The practice of receiving foreign words into our language, in a foreign orthography, is one of the most serious and growing evils which the friends of an elegant and regular language have to combat. The powers of many of the letters are very different in different languages. When therefore a French, or a German word is introduced into English, the letters should be translated—and the true sounds of the foreign words expressed in English characters of correspondent powers. ”