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Topos, MO, Real, Inglish, Sonic, SoundEnglish, IMPS, YY, NS94,
System2, YuroSpel, MAKS, PASS, Logik, Alex
Annotated Bibliography on Spelling Reform
Arncliffe, T (1935) The Spelling of English Wakefield: Eagle Press The most beautifully produced and elegantly argued case for an ~ augmented alphabet scheme yet seen by the author. Asher, RE & Henderson, JA (eds.)(1981) Towards a History of Phonetics Edinburgh: Univ. Press This is a Festschrift for David Abercrombie, "doyen of British phoneticians", and a Vice.President of,the Simplified Spelling Society. It is a wide-ranging collection of papers and, for our purposes, usefully includes Prof. Abercrombie's seminal Some Orthographic Experiments of the Last Four Centuries. In this he unearths a wide range of historical new alphabet and diacritical schemes. There is also an interesting paper on Isaac Pitman's mid 19c. work on new and ITA augmented alphabet schemes. Beale, GA (1989) Items: The First Printing in Advanced English Orthography London: Cadenza Press Elegantly presents explanation of, and sample texts in, an It augmented alphabet scheme Bischoff, GA (1954) 1975- Improved Spelling & the Metric System London: St Catherine Press/Pitman Argues for a mixed digraphic/diacritic system. Bridges, R (1927...) Collected Essays & Papers, Vols. 1-10 Oxford: Univ. Press Robert Bridges was Poet Laureate and founder in 1919 of the Society for Pure English, which published several papers touching on spelling reform in its SPE Tracts, prior to its demise just after the Second World War. Bridges personally favoured an au_p_mCnted alphabet approach and this edition of his collected papers, starting publication towards the end of his life and continued posthumously, gradually introduces more and more of his ideas volume by volume until the system reaches completion in volume 6. Bridges wanted to provide samples so that interested parties could form their own judgments about how far to go towards complete phoneticity. Abercrombie (see notes under Asher & Henderson (1981)) assisted with the phonetics. Citron, Abraham F (1983) Let's DUE it.t Focus 7:4, also reprinted by BEtSS Lively article encouraging dropping of useless (final) e by founder of Better Education thru Simplified Spelling. Coulmas, F (1989) The Writing Systems of the Worm Oxford: Blackwell Presents a modern aljd unusually broad socio-linguistic background to the problems of devising writing systems. An eye-opening "global view" for those only familiar with the problems of English or European languages. Two useful chapters deal with the special difficulties of creating alphabets, and with reforms in language usage. Downing, J (1967) Evaluating the Initial Teaching Alphabet London: Casseli The classic review of the ita scheme. Downing was President of the Simplified Spelling Society. Downing, J & Leong, CK (1982) Psychology of Reading New York: Macmillan The key work on the topic, which includes an extensive bibliography for those wishing to follow this line of research. Fennely, LR (1991) New Spelling 90 UK: Simplified Spelling Society The first revised edition of this scheme to be published since Ripman & Archer (1948) (qv) Follick, M (1965) The Case for Spelling Reform London: Pitman Posthumously published statement of position by Follick, who was one of the two MPs (along with Sir James Pitman) championing spelling reform in Parliament during the 1950s. It provides full detail of their campaign (described also by Pitman in Haas (1969)) and describes Follick's own digraphic proposal. Gibbs, S (1984) Stage 2 Unpublished correspondence See text for an explanation of this scheme. Haas, W (1969) Alphabets for English Manchester: Univ. Press A key collection of five papers: Haas' introduction to spelling and reform; Sir James Pitman's side of the Parliamentary campaign and appraisal of Follick (qv); Wijk (qv) summarising his approach; and two papers by - phonetician Peter MacCarthy on digraphic New Spelling (see Ripman & Archer (1948)) and the Shaw (New) Alphabet Competition. Hofmann, Th.R (1989) Showing Pronunciation in EFL Teaching Journal of the Simplified Spelling Society 1989:1 Lays the linguistic and phonetic basis for the author's ETA. Further. ETA descriptions in various papers so far unpublished. Howatt, APR (1984) A History of English Language Teaching Oxford: Univ. Press The definitive work on teaching English over the ages. Discusses two 16c spelling reform proposals (Hart and Muleaster) but otherwise only touches on orthographical issues. Ives, Kenneth H (1979)Written Dialects n Spelling Reform Chicago: Progresiv Publishr A summary history of the spelling reform movement with useful detail on American reformers. It innovatively presents alternative spellings as dialects of the written language. Uses Ives' Economy Spelling 4. Lindgren, H (1969) Spelling Reform - A New Approach Sydney: Alpha Books Detailed proposals of the SRI . . . 50 approach and discussion of two possible targets, Phonetic A and Phonetic B. Okakura, Y (1932) Studies in English Literature Tokyo: Kenkyusha Rambling review of spelling and reform attempts, concluding with the author's ~ proposal. Paulsen, V (1971) Improved Orthography-/in AM to Reading San Francisco: Torskript Publications Describes the author's augmented alphabet approach called TORSKRIPT. Pitman, Sir J & St John, J (1969) Alphabets & Reading London: Pitman A seminal and very well-researched book, the main objectives of which are to provide background on problems of literacy teaching in British schools, and then present Pitman's initial teaching alphabet (ita) as the solution. On the way, it presents a huge amount of information on , other schemes, from the 16c to present day. It presents a typology similar to, but not as extensive as, that developed here. A very useful appendix compares many schemes in tabular form. Ripman, W & Archer, W (1948) New Spelling (Sixth Edition) London: Pitman The last full edition describing the ~ system that was developed within the Simplified Spelling Society around 1910. For several decades it was the only system promoted by the Society. New Spelling was aligned with similar American proposals in 1955 and changed in some minor ways in the early 1970s. An edition incorporating changes after 1948 was prepared as New Speiling/Wurid lnglish, bur never published: see Wilkinson (1974). A new summary edition was produced ~ with minor changes as New Spelling 90 in 1991: see Fennelly (1991). Robher, T (1989) Basic English Speling Winnetka, Illinois: Basic English Speling The system and the organisation have the same name. The organisation is a non-profit educational trust. Rondthaler, E & Lias, EJ (eds.)(1986) Dictionary ofAmerican Spelling New York: American Language Academy The American Language Academy (subsequently renamed American Literacy Council) was the successor to the Phonemic Spelling Council, in turn renamed from the Simpler Spelling Association. This remarkable dictionary, with much explanatory information fore and aft, presents the American aiglap. h~ system descended, with very minor changes, from the joint system agreed with the British SSS in 1955. Rupert, Arnold (1991) NS9/NSlO - Less School Tax & Better Education Canada: published by the author The latest augmented alphabet schemes, very well argued and presented, from Arnold Rupert, a lifetime worker in this field. Booklet available from the author at Lunenburg, Ontario K0C I R0. Sampson, G (1985) Writing Systems London: Hutchinson This general work on writing systems claims to be "the first to use descriptive linguistics". A lively chapter on English spelling reviews the problems and a selection of reform proposals, then going on to analyse the need for chadge and its likelihood. Scragg, DG (1974) A History of English Spelling Manchester: Univ. Press Definitive work on the subject by the current Simplified Spelling Society President. Shaw, GB (1962) Androcles & The Lion (Shaw Alphabet Edition) Harmondsworth: Penguin Books A parallel text on facing pages contrasting TO and the Shaw Alphabet designed by Kingsley Read, one of the winners of the competition sponsored by Shaw's Will. Judges included Sir James Pitman, who held various offices in the SSS over the years, and Peter MacCarthy: see Haas (1969). Phonetic transliteration for this edition was undertaken by MacCarthy.Smalley, (on the criteria for evaluating writing systems) Simplified Spelling Society (1984) Tough Though Thought-and we call it correct spelling! SSS pamfiet explaining the Stage 1 collection of cut redundancy and partial rectification changes. Tauber, A (ed.) (1963) Shaw on Language London: Peter Owen A collection of texts and extracts, mostly by Shaw, on language and spelling topics. Reprints much documentation, from the (in)famaous Will onwards, surrounding the Alphabet Competition. Upward, Christopher (1992) Cut Spelling: A Handbook UK: Simplifed Spelling Society This "handbook to the simplification of written English by omission of redundant letters" represents the first full publication of 10 years work on this important ~ proposal. Enormously well-argued, it includes a 20 000 word TO to Cut Spelling dictionary and a bibliography. Venezky, RL (1970) The Structure of English Orthography The Hague: Mouton A very detailed analysis aiming to "show the patterning which exists in the present orthography" and arguing that TO is not a '"system riddied with imperfections, but instead a more complex and more regular relationship . . ." Dismisses as unachievable reform attempts on any other basis than consistent rules. Wijk, A (1959) Regularized English Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell A huge book, packed with scholarship and ideas, representing Wijk's lifetime commitment to .the problems of English orthography. It takes almost 100 pages to describe the problems and the various "official" (ie. SSS and Amercian SSA) schemes proposed to solve them, then going on to present Wijk's consistent rules approach. Wijk, A (1977) Regularized English: A Proposal for an Effective Solution of the Reading Problem in the English-speaking Countries Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiltsell A companion volume to Regulari--ed English, flowing from the author's efforts through the Bullock Committee and the UK Reading Association to influence British teaching methods during the early 1970s. It mostly deals with the practicalities of using his scheme in teaching. Wilkinson, HS (1974) New Spelling- WurM lnglish (Seventh Edn.) Privately printed This patchily eccentric book updated Ripman & Archer's Sixth Edition of 1948 (qv) with the Anglo-American joint changes agreed in 1955 and various SSS adjustments agreed in the early 1970s. Its publication was sanctioned by the SSS and the work was typeset, but it was never published. A few proof copies only are extant. The reasons for its non- appearance seem to have been that Wilkinson's age and infirmities prevented him seeing it through the press, and that opinion in the SSS of the Society's role was at the time shifting away from the idea of official promotion of only one scheme, towards encouraging discussion of a plurality of proposals. Zachrisson, RE (1932) Anglic. Sweden: Uppsala Univ. Press AIm republished in the USA by McGrath Publishing, College Park, Maryland in 1970. Full statement of Zachrisson's scheme which came very close to being accepted as the 'official' SSS scheme, in place of New Spelling, around 1930. Contains an informative history of spelling reform up to 1932.Zachrisson, RE (1970) Anglic. College Pk. Maryland: McGrath Publishinggo to Valerie Yule's bibliography
