Talk:English orthography

Orthography reform

Have there ever been any efforts at orthography reform, to bring spelling and pronounciation closer together? --AxelBoldt

I always liked this one by Mark Twain. --Zundark, 2001 Nov 18

Axel - there have been dozens of efforts, in fact it deserves an entire article of its own. None of them have been successful, with the notable exception of Webster's efforts to simplify American spelling. (The colour -> color, catalogue -> catalog stuff).

Do not forget that in the 1970's or so, China changed it system of "Romanisation", using the unused letters or letter combinations for uniquely Chinese sounds: X="sh", j; z; zh. Since China is big and important place, its use of these letters means that they are no longer free for English to redefine them in its own right, as suggested by Mark Twain and others.

It is noted, that the spelling reform proposed by Mark Twain is inconsistent with the new Chinese usage; why don't these reformers co-ordinate their efforts?

Letter(s) Twain .... China

CH ...... C ........ ?

SH ...... Y ........ X

TH ...... X ........ ?

There is already a page on Spelling reform, and the first section covers English. It should be linked from this article.

Mark Twain appears to have been joking, though I don't know his actual views. But the idea of progressive change makes sense. --Singkong2005 13:03, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think how foreign languages spell their words are not really relevant to English spelling. All languages have their own different spelling systems, the fact that "x", "zh" or "q" are used in the romanisation (pinyin) of uniquely Chinese sounds does not affect how these letters are used in English words. LDHan 12:19, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"International English" and "Commonwealth English" nonsense

BTW - I am rewriting this entire series of articles, getting rid of the "International English" and "Commonwealth English" nonsense (except for noting that they are terms in the computer industry) and rewriting everything in terms of "Written American English", "Written British English" (which research shows are the two accepted terms in for the orthographical systems in all reference texts) and then treating all of the spoken variants on a regional basis, as is the current approach. - MMGB

Wow - big improvement! I'd still like to see the two domnant orthographies of contemporary English acknowledged.- MMGB

The page now says:

American English spelling diverged slightly from that of British English, partly as a conscious attempt at rationalisation, partly to distance the newly-independent United States from Great Britain, but the changes are so small as to make hardly any difference, and merely make work for proof readers and sellers of spell-checking software.

I'm not an English native speaker, but this "slight diversion" in the English spelling sometimes drives me nuts. In a Wikipedia page about English orthography, there really should be more about this topic than this small piece. Which is British and which American? color or colour? traveler or traveller? centre or center? encyclopedia or encyclopaedia or encyclopædia? organise or organize? catalogue or catalog? At a bare minimum, the most common differences should be mentioned. (Or a new page about this should be written (if it hasn't already) and a link to it should be on this page.)

This is now linked (differences between British and American spelling) in the second section. Singkong2005 12:10, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The terminolgy of these different spelling is sometimes an issue on its own. People do sometimes insist on "Commonwealth English" instead of "(written) British English" and "International English" (oh the horror) instead of "(written) American English". --Adhemar

This is a really useful essay. --MichaelTinkler

Spelling of Czech

Furthermore, in most recent loanwords, English makes no attempt to Anglicize the spellings of these words, and preserves the foreign spellings, even when they employ exotic conventions, like the "cz" in "Czech" or...

Is "Czech" really a loanword of a preserved spelling? If so, please tell which language does that spelling come from. I can only say that the Czech stem for this is "Čech", which engages even a letter with a diacritical mark, so this spelling could not be preserved in English at all. Maybe it is a loanword from Polish, in which the name for Czech Republic is "Czechy" (although unlike in English the "ch" is pronounced like in "Bach", and not like "k")? Blahma 09:10, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Dictionary.com identifies 'Czech' as coming from Polish. The pronounciation of the 'ch' in Polish doesn't really matter, we don't have a voiceless velar fricative so words borrowed from other languages with them are usually pronounced as /k/, sometimes as /h/ or /tS/ (english 'ch' sound). Adapting foreign words to fit your phonology is a usual part of the borrowing process. — Felix the Cassowary 10:22, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly, the explanation on dictionary.com looks suspicious. The Czech word "Čech" was written as "Czech" prior to the Jan Hus orthographic reform in the 15th century, and even though the old spelling gradually faded away, it was occassionally used until the 19th century. It is more natural to assume that the English word comes from Czech than from Polish. This is only a personal speculation, but nevertheless I feel that the "Polish theory" needs a more serious source than a short remark in an online dictionary. -- EJ 20:34, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The OED gives etymology [Boh. Čech, Pol. Czech.]. The earliest citation with the spelling "Czech" is from 1850. Note the other spellings used contemporaneously, which also follow neither English nor Czech conventions. Joestynes 09:20, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

1841 PRICHARD Phys. Hist. Mankind (ed. 3) III. 416 The Moravians are nearly akin to the Tschechi or Bohemians. 1850 LATHAM Varieties of Man 539 Native name Tshekh (Czech). 1852 Ethnol. Europe 241 Both populations are Tshekh speaking the Tshekh language. 1866 ENGEL Nat. Mus. vii. 265 The national dances of the Czechs. 1879 Encycl. Brit. VIII. 701/2 Czech, or Tsekh, is the national language of Bohemia, and is also largely spoken in Moravia and north-western Hungary.

Thanks. That's interesting, I would have thought the word is somewhat older. So, as I understand it, the English word as such comes from Czech, but its spelling finally stabilized in a Polish form, which survived a mess of other spellings (particulary, German-influenced). As this article is about English spelling rather than language in general, I'm fine with that. -- EJ 20:07, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maria's here!

Question: Is it correct that "Maria" in RP rhymes with "here"? I've never heard such a pronunciation (but then I'm not British). —Eric

I had to think about it for a second (the idea that these could rhyme seems insane to this American rhotic speaker), but I *think* that's correct. The dictionaries I checked give "here" in RP as /hI@/ (recoded into SAMPA notation), so to match you'd have /m@'rI@/ for "Maria", which doesn't sound implausable. Brion VIBBER

Hm, FWIW they don't rhyme in Australian English, which is usually compatible that way with RP. Maria has three syllables: /mə riː ə/, whereas here has just one: /hɪə/. Also, in Australian English, Maria is usually pronounced phonetically much like it is phonemically, whereas here is more usually pronounced (at least verging on) [hɪː], so usually they're quite distinct, like player and prayer. Still, there are occasions when here gets a pronunciation like [hiːɐ] so they're sometimes merged in pronunciation. (Usually, there's mergers between ear (ere, eer, ier etc.) and eä (as in idea, theatre), but not between ear (etc.) and ia or io (as in idiolect).)

That's only for Australian English mind—and perhaps only my ideolect. Still, I'd imagine it holds more generally for Australian English and Received Pronunciation.

—Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 13:44, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Orthography

This article needs to tell the untrained reader what orthography means. Kingturtle 21:47 May 5, 2003 (UTC)

Jo is old

The page says:

Since the 1970s and possibly earlier, affectionate versions of women's names that sound the same as men's names have been spelt differently: ... Jo and Joe.

Jo March was the female protagonist of Little Women, published in 1868.

Norman spelling

The article says:

"The pronunciation /ʌ/ (normally spelled u) of written o in son, love, come, etc. is due to Norman spelling conventions prohibiting writing of u before v, m, n due to the graphical confusion that would result. (v, u, n were identically written with two minims in Norman handwriting; w was written as two u letters; m was written with three minims, hence mm looked like vun, nvu, uvu, etc.)"

But first of all, why would the Normans need to spell "son", "love", etc, which are English words? And secondly, according to my Old French professor and textbook, "u" for "o" is particularly Anglo-Norman where other forms of French would have "o" (the pronouns "mon" and "ton" for example were spelled "mun" and "tun" in Anglo-Norman). The stuff about the mimins is true but I am not aware of any orthographical changes that happened because of it (and, in fact, because scribal abbreviations often replaced m and n with a symbol there would be no need to avoid the combination of -un or -um in the first place). Adam Bishop 19:57, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

After the Normans invaded England in about 1066, French became the language of learning and culture and English more-or-less stopped being written. Some time later, it started to be written again, by people who were literate in Norman French (even if they were born speaking English). "Normans" mightn't've needed to've spelt "son", but people who only knew "Norman spelling conventions" would've. (I don't know about the spelling of o vs u in Old French so can't comment.) One orthographical change that has come about because of the stuff about minims is that i's nowadays have dots on them. A second one is that in English, words like son, love, come are spelt with an o, to minimise the confusion. —Felix the Cassowary 02:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

article name

"English spelling" should be high up on a list of corny (not to mention unencyclopedic) article names. Why is it called "English spelling" instead of "English orthography" like it should be? If this were simple:, I'd understand, but it's not. Whoever's bright idea this article name was should notice that our article on English phonology is at English phonology, not English sounds. Tomer ^talk 03:34, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Spelling patterns

Could we/I add a list of the spelling patterns of english here? Cameron Nedland 15:50, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For example? Tomer ^talk 05:26, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For example, tion, cian and sion usually make a shun sound, etc. (we should do the pronounciation parts in IPA)Cameron Nedland 23:39, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've added some and I'll put more later.Cameron Nedland 02:18, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I converted them to a tabular form for more easy reading. Keep going! Would you also like to do the reverse (same spelling, different pronunciation)? −Woodstone 13:09, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gods bless you! I don't know how to make the charts, but you're a hero in my book. I'll see what I can do about the reverse.Cameron Nedland 16:21, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I still can't figure out what I'm doing wrong with the charts.Cameron Nedland 20:58, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed it. Note that you can use the button "Show preview" to have a look at the result, without creating an entry in the history. After it's right you push "Save".

Tables start with {| and end with |} (in column 1); a new row starts with a line with only |- and then | on the next line; a new column starts with ||; there should not be a | after the row. You will get the hang of it. See also Help:Table. −Woodstone 21:32, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again, I'm sorry.Cameron Nedland 21:32, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've figured it out now. Thanks.Cameron Nedland 00:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've made a start on the reverse version. I've tried to give an indication of whether these are normal or exceptions. It would be good to have add another example for each one which would help us determine what is normal and what is an exception. It's definitely a work in progress - you can see I lost the will when I got to 's'!

For the sound to spelling table, please could you state the variety of English - it really helps to know! Also, I was unsure about certain examples: soldier, conscience, biscuit and ocean. At least in my dialect (British), these are all followed by schwa and I think it could reasonably be argued that the following vowel should be grouped as part of the reduced vowel, not part of the consonant. For example, in biscuit I think 'c' is /k/ and 'ui' is /i/, not 'ci' is /k/ and 'i' is /i/. What do you think? Gailtb 23:06, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can see what you're saying, I'll have to get back to you on that.Cameron Nedland 01:35, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On what basis are some proper nouns with unusual spellings listed (Sault Ste. Marie) and not others (Etobicoke, Beauchamp, Featherstonehaugh, etc.)? Poslfit

No basis, go ahead and add them (I don't know how those are pronounced).Cameron Nedland 20:18, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Letter-sound pairs in English

The article which is suggested to be merged here is not really about English spelling. In fact, it is just a table which shows the dictionary.com pronunciation transcription against the IPA. I would be in favour of just deleting it. Any comments? Gailtb 00:15, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it should be deleted. Being of value for interpreting just one web site it is not encyclopedic matter. However the official procedure RfD should be followed. −Woodstone 08:07, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I happen to disagree. This has lots to with English spelling because it shows how we write certain sounds.Cameron Nedland 04:07, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The point of contention is that it contains information pertinent to one website. As the information is already on this page, merge and remove the dictionary.com column. 218.102.71.167 13:12, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]