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Anyone who has given the topic any thought concedes that there are just too many orthographic options in English spelling and that spelling should be a better guide to pronunciation than it presently is. On the other hand, after spending 10 years learning how to speed read English word patterns, most literate people are relunctant to accept a change that will (temporarily) make reading more difficult and reduce their reading speed..

Gains	Losses
Easier to learn Easier to spell Easier to pronounce	Temporary loss of reading speed Some relearning required Familiar spelling patterns

Most people seem to equate the writing system with the language and think that changing the orthography will somehow change what has been made permanent - the representation of speech.. There is a down side to phonemic spelling, but this is not one of them.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), an advocate of simplified phonemic spelling, argued that the gains (listed above) would be worth the temporary inconvenience. Franklin, was not just an armchair advocate of alphabaetic spelling, he developed an augmented alphabet and a phonemic notational system (1768).

Some people think that if Shakespeare is spelled differently some of the beauty will be lost. The spelling that they find so beautiful, however, was not the spelling used by Shakespear (1564-1616). Spelling was reformed between 1650 and 1750. The reform, however, had little to do with the alphabetic principle. It was not a phonemic reform. In Shakespears time, some spellings were more phonemic than today. love=luv, come=cvm. etc. Early 17th century spelling was not standardized and often contained redundant letters as in cwynne for queen. It is said that over his lifetime, Shakespeare spelled his own name over 8 different ways.

Follick B & C	New Spelling
Tu: bi: or not tu: bi: Th'at iz th'u kwestch'n Weth'r 'tiz no'bl'r in th'' mynd tu: suf'r Th'u slingz and ero'z uv outreij's forch'n Or tu: teik armz agenst a' si: uv trubl'z And by opo'sing end th'em	Too bee or not too bee Dhat iz dhu kwestch'n Weth'r 'tiz noeblr in dhu miend too suf'r Dhu slingz and aerouz ov outraejus forchoon Or too taek armz agenst a see ov trublz And bie opoezing end dhem
Tu bi or not tu bi That iz th kwestchn Wethr 'tiz no'blr in th mynd tu sufr Th slingz 'n ero'z 'v outre:j's forchn Or tu te:k armz agenst a' si 'v trublz And by opo'sing end them	Follick is already more space efficient than New Spelling.  Cut Follick (or Follick C), shown on the left, is even more compact.

A more phonemic (or alphabetic) writing system would be much easier to learn for a child or a second language learner. For the already literate, however, the gains would be limited to simplified spelling: greater consistency in sound representation and (depending on the notation) fewer characters per sentence.

Advantages

Disadvantages

Children would save an enormous amount of time and emotional effort in learning to read. It would be of great help to children with learning difficulties. It would lower the bar to literacy. Because fewer letters would be used (a possible 15% savings), there would be a great savings in writer's time, and in the time and cost of typing, printing, and associated matters. There would be considerable benefits to foreign learners of English and thus to the spread of English throughout the world.

There could be a major break in continuity between old and new spelling, especially in the more radical schemes. The period of transition would present major problems. It is difficult to see how a program of spelling reform could be implemented in a practical reaslitic way All who have learned old spelling have a vested interest in it and few would be willing to learn an alternative or which to have their children learn one. The problem of inertia is insuperable. The savings in costs could be outweighed by the need to reprint important works in the new spellling. Unlike TO, standardized phonemic spelling needs to have a standard base pronunciation. To the extent that someone did not speak the standard dialect, they would have trouble spelling. Differences between accents might promote a demand for diversity in spelling. There seems to be no agreement amongst the reformers about the optimum system.

English orthography has been called morpho-phonemic and lexical indicating that there are factors besides sound that determine how a word is spelled. For example, word origin or etymology is a factor. English is primarily a mix of Anglo-Saxon, French, and Latin and the spelling often reflects these diverse origins. 73% of the most frequently used words are AngloSaxon but only about 12% of the English vocabulary is Anglo-Saxon in origin.

Approx. Dates	Period	Event	Words
450-1100	Old English 1180 Orm's Ormulum double Cs after short V heo /he:'/-she, ste'n'-sto'n nicht - night, scip-ship	Anglo-Saxon Invasion Beowulf 500 Viking Raids 800-1000 75 yr. Danish Rule 886	Danelaw both, same get, give, be s- ending hring, hnecce
1100-1500	Middle English 1st spoken in Parliament 1425 End of 100 year war 1450	Norman Conquest 1066 Wycliff Bible 1380 Chaucer 1345-1400 Vowel Shift 1400 o'-e, Shakespeare 1564-1516	vse-use, gh cwen-queen eche-each pat-that Inglande 3onge-young sych-such
1500-1750	Early Modern	Caxton Printing 1476 King James Bible 1611 Royal Society 1660	myght-mi3t su'n-sun cu't-cut
1750 - 2000	Late Modern	1775 Johnson's Dict. Ben Franklin 1706-1790 Webster's Dictionary 1828	g,r droping band/ban,k ban,

Universalize a common English spelling

The most conservative or least disruptive phonemic alphabets try to take the most common English spelling for a sound and makes it universal. This sounds like a good idea until one realizes that consistent spelling will change the look of over 50% of the words in a story.

start NF	same spelling	same sound	Follick Spellling	.
ea /i:/	bead	feed	fi:d	This chart shows how TO uses the same letter combinations to represent six different sounds and how the same sound can be spelled six different ways in TO but only one way in a phonemic script such as New Follick..
h'rd	heard	beak	bi:k
bred	bread	complete	compli:t
breik	break	be	bi:
fir	fear	happy	hapi:
ber	bear	chief	chi:f

TO spells six different sounds the same way and six identical sounds different ways.

In a phonemic writing system, words are spelled the way they sound so it is simple to sound out unfamiliar words and spell them the way the dictionary spells them provided that your pronunciation corresponds to the RP (base or received pronunciation) used by the lexicograhapers. The chances of correctly spelling an unfamiliar word in English TO is about 50%, according to Hanna, Kessler and others who have studied English orthography. This may seem optimistic given the fact that a typical vowel can be spelled about 20 different ways. Here are some of the different ways to spell the vowel in *fool: (ful, fule, fol, fole, fewl, fuile, fwol, foul, ...)

18 ways to spell /u:/ as in tool, few, and tutu.

In a phonemic writing system, *fool would be spelt one way (See WES above). In TO (traditional orthography), the vowel sound in *fool is spelt [oo] about 38% of the time and [u] about 21% of the time. Adding to the confusion is the fact that the vowel sound in *wood is also spelled [oo] 31% and [u] 54%. Some phonemic alphabets are more easily read but they all look a little strange: e.g., rool, floo, moov, roobee, brooz, wood. As the last example indicates, some phonemic representations of the sound in *ooze look as though they should rhyme with *would. English orthography spells different sounds the same way (put, but, ruby) ( move, dove, cove).

The following table indicates the goals of spelling reform and the kinds of problems encountered when trying to implement a reform. If it was easy, it would have been done in the 18th century.

Questions & Problems	Goals relative to TO Traditional Orthography
What is the Base Pronunciation? Are the goals mutually achievable? Which spelling pattern should be universal? Should digraphs be avoided? Should diacritical marks be used? Should there be only one spelling per sound? Should there be only one pronunciation   per spelling?	Simpler than TO, fewer rules Easier to learn and teach Closer to IPA w/o diacritical marks More regular and consistent A better guide to pronunciation Economic in terms of space Closer correspondence between graphemes and phonemes

Anglic and other New Spelling notations were framed with the view of fufilling the following conditions:

To represent every word in one spelling, reflecting common speech pronunciations

To be phonemic while deviating little from existing or traditional spelling

To be easily learned by necessitating as few rules as possible

To simplify and save space by eliminating silent letters, double consonants, and other redundancies thereby minimizing complex and convoluted spellings

Quite a bit can be achieved by simply eliminating silent letters, double letters, and other redundancies. Such changes move the writing system toward greater regularity and make it more alphabetical (phonemic). Criteria of an adequate writing system in order of importance (Smalley, 1964, p. 34f)

Smalley's Criteria for an adequate writing system listed in order of importance.  (Smalley, 1964, p. 34f)	Goals of most spelling reformers & orthographic notations written in New Spelling Notation
Maximum motivation for the learner Maximum representation of speech Maximum ease of learning Maximum transfer - ease of transition Maximum ease of reproduction	Tu fasilitaet lrning tu reed Tu maek lrning tu spel unes'sery Tu asimilaet reedng and rietng tu hirng and speekng Tu provied a gied for th pron'nsiAsh'n ov Inglish aksesibl tu ol reederz provinsh'l and for'n

It is not enough to develop a superior writing system (Criteria 2 &3). First and foremost, the system has seen by the learners (including peers and parents) as something that will improve their status or give them more earning power and prestige. One of Smalley's examples is the technically excellent writing system that was created for Hatian Creole that was later used by the Laubach literacy campaign. The only problem was that most Haitian people aspire to speak and read French and the writing system didn't look like French. The only way to get any acceptance was to compromise the notation so it represented French sound values. The resulting notation wasn't quite as simple and elegant, but it was more apealing.

Such examples are used to critique elegant solutions to the problem of representing English speech sounds which deviate too far from traditional spelling. Systems that are close to IPA are typically rejected as impractical becasue they reflect continental rather than traditional English sound signs.

Sound Signs Key word DS spelling IPA notation	TO Spelling Patterns    (Hanna, 1971) Frequency of a letter to represent sound (f=mostly final)	f K	Initial
Age (Aj) /ei/	[a]45%f,  [a-e]35%,  [ai]9%,  [ay]6%,  [ei]2%	2.2	[a-e]95%
Eel (El) /i:/	[e]70%f,  [ee]10%,  [i]3%,  [i-e]2%,  [e-e]2%, [ie]1.3%	2.5	[ea]95%
Ice (Is) /ai/	[i]37%f,   [i-e]37%,   [y]14%,  [igh]6%	1.4	[i-e]95%
Oat (Ot) /ou/	[o]72%f,  [o-e]14%,  [oa]5%,  [ow]5%,  [ou]1%	2.6	[o-e]50%
Use (Uz) /iu/	[u]69%,  [u-e]22%,  [ew]3%,  [eu]2%,  [ui]2%	1.2	[u-e]95%
Ooze (Ooz)/u:/	[oo]38%,  [u]21%,  [o]8%,  [u-e]8%,  [ew]5%,  [eu]4%	0.5	rare
hook (hvk)/u/	[oo]30%, [u]30%,
up (up)/^/	[u]60%

Single letters are typically used in TO in the terminal or final position to indicate a "long" vowel. Single letters are also the most frequent way to represent a long vowel because they are also used in multi-syllable words.

As shown in the last column above, the most frequent way to indicate a long vowel in the intial position is to attach a magic *e. This is used to represent all long vowels except /i:/.  [ea] is the most frequent way to spell a word beginning with the /i:/ sound.

Although not the most frequent spelling pattern, [ee] is often selected as the representation for /i:/ because it is never used to represent another sound (See MenuSpell). As the statistics show, English spelling (TO) considers /i:/ to be a kind of [e] (the long e) rather than [or much more often than] a kind of [i]. (see Alt.spel)

Laubach uses multiple spellings IPA NF MF NS 1 Initial 2 Medial 3 Final ei e: A great maid  me:d made me:d day  de: i: i: E bee eat complete key  ki: ai `i  y I tie I, item wide wyd high  hy ou o' O toe oat, oak hope  ho'p low lo' iu iu U true union fuel  fiul few fiu u: u: W ooze choose  chu:z tune  tu:n to tu: u u' J V hook hook  hu'k pu't, gu'd wJd wu'd ^ u u up cup acute a'kiu:t sofa so'fa' r 'r u'r R urn bird b'rd hurry her  h'r ir ir Er ear cheer mirror here hir eir er Ar air baer merry care ker c: o: c awe song saw, so: auto o:to' our or OR oar four floor more au au C haus hau cow ouch auch ou o' O owe open soak so'k toe to'

What Smalley seems to be saying, however, is that unless the better writing system is seen as giving more status or earning power to those who learn it than TO, it will not be freely adopted. While languages evolve over time, historic changes in writing systems have generally been imposed following a change in the ruling class or a change in religion. There are examples of successful orthographic reforms (Portuguese was reformed in 1700, 1800, and 1900 to improve its consistency and to bring the writing system more in line with the spoken language) but there are also examples of cultures resisting change and retaining substandard writing systems.

Technically Substandard

A good criteria for a substandard system would be one that took over 40 hours to teach. If we are trying to get the most people safely across the stream, an effective technique is to lower the water level. We have the option of lowering the bar that we want students to jump. We can lower the literacy bar by teaching a simpler system, one that does not require the student to memorize the dictionary in order to be a good speller or reader.

Using Smalley's insights, we might conclude that the basic problem with ITA (essentially New Spelling with ligatures) was that learners and their parents aspired to read and write TO not some invented provisional phonemic system.. The ITA (Initial Teaching Alphabet) seemed to many parents as a needless detour.

New Spelling and Follick have one advantage over ITA, they do not require a special font. Both systems have universalized one consistent set of spelling patterns and provide a good basis for an easy spelling system. Double Spell is more TO oriented by having two orthographic options for each sound: Each sound has a one letter and a two letter representation. wvn/wuhn tu/too  thrE/three  fOr/four  fIv/faiv  six/sihks  sevn/sehvuhn  At/eit  nIn/nain ten/tehn.

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• Click here to see side by side comparisons of alternate orthographie compiled from the contributions of various orthographers on the Spelling mailing list.
• There is more than one way to assign letters to phonemes. There is more than one way to consistently represent the sounds of English.

Notation	6 LONG Vowels:    @:       i:       a:      u:     e:    o:	6 SHORT Vowels: a/cut, e/pet, i/pit, o/pot, u/put, a/pat
TO SS NF SW DS	The early green grass grew fairly tall Dx Rli grjn graas gruu feeli tool.        Th' u'rly gri:n gra:s gru: fe:rly to:l           Dhu urly green gras gru ferly tcl             Th 'rly grEn gras gru ferly tol.	I put the cat up in a copper kettle. Ai put dx kat ap in a kopc ketl.          Ai pu't th' kat up in a kop'r ketl        Cy puut dhu kat up in u kcpr ketl   I pvt th cat up in a copr ketl
.	6 DIPHTHONGS: ai   ei   oi   au   iu   ou	Notational Systems
TO MS SS AT NS NFB SW DS DSU	I say, new boy, go out! I say, noo baw:ee, goh ah:oot! Ai sei, niu boi, gou aut! I SA, NU BQ, GO CT!  Ie sae, nue boi, goe out!    Ai sei, nu: boi, go' aut! cy sey, nu bcy, go aut!    I sey nu boy, go aut! I sA nu bQ, gO Ct!	(Traditional Orthography) (Menu Spell) (IanSpel - Sound Spell)           (ANJeL Tug (tongue)) (New Spelling)     (New Follick Euro-IPA)  (Spel Wel)    (dBLspel)  (dBLspel-unispel)
IPA CS NF DS DSP MS NES AT NA	hau=how,   >=ah,   >:= o =awe,  or=awr,  ou=owe For a few in the crew, th lack th lak of good food fueled th feud. For a' fiu in th' kru: th lak uv gu'd fu:d fiu'ld th' fiud. For a fU in th crw, th lak ov gvd fwd fULd th fUd For a fiu in th cru, th lak uv gvd fwd fiuld th fiud. Fohr uh fyoo ihn dhuh kroo, dhu lak uhv guud food fyoouhld dhuh fyood. Faur a fue in the krue, the lak ov guud food fueld the fued. FoR u FU iN hu KRX, hu LaK uV GxD FXD FUeLD hu FUD. FoR u FU iN hu KRw, hu LaK uV GvD FwD FUeLd hu FUD.

NF and DS use very broad transcriptions for particles such as the, a, an, and, and of. They are not strictly phonemic due to the abbreviation. *the=/dhv/dhee/=th, *an/and=n, and *of=/uhv/=ov or v.

For the most part, each of these systems begins with the IPA notation in a pronunciation dictionary and tries to find an English spelling pattern that will cause the least disruption or "visual shock". SS, NFipa and ANJeL to not attempt to conform to the ideosyncracies of TO, the most other notational systems do.

14th century English contained no silent letters. It was more or less phonemic and consistent. Need to get from point A to point B. Can lower the water level. Februa-festival of purification. doesn't change the etymology to drop the silent letter. The dictionary follows us with respect to the pronunciation guide. Give people to tools to shape their lives. Febuary.

Alternate Notations TO Menu Spel NF NS Monofon ANJeL initiated ih-nish-ee-ay-tuhd inishi-eit'd iniesheeaet'd inESEAt'd iNESEAT'D donut dough doh-nuht doh do'nut do' doenut doe dOnut dO DONuT DO doubt dot draw dowt daht draw daut dot dro, dout dot drau dXt dot drq DCT DoT DRo unparalleled uhn-par-uh-leld unpar'leld unpar'leld unparLeld uNPaRuLeLD parachute par-uh-shoot par'shu,t par'shoot par'SWt PaRuSXT professor proh-fes-uhr pr'fes'r profes'r pr'fes'r PRoFeS'R

Nu Folik: Nuthing `watevr iz mor tu, bi, dezyrd or mor delytfvl than th' lyt 'v truth:  for it iz th' sors ov wizd'm. Wen th mynd iz h'rast with obscuriti, distractd by dauts, rendrd torpid or sad'nd by ignorans or fols'tiez, and tru,th emerj'z az frum a' dark abis, it shynz forth instante,niusli, lyk th' sun dispersing mists and vap'rz, or lyk th' daun dispeling th' sheidz 'v darknes.

To represent every word in one spelling and only one spelling has been the faith of all reformers for a hundred years or more. Yet double spell deviates from this article of faith not because it has to but because it provides a better bridge to TO.

The real issue is really with the best representation of 9 vowels and dipthongs. ei, a, ae, v, i:, ai, ou, iu. au.

This notation for English works pretty well.

The rational for this apostasy, this deviation from the alphabetic principle, is to generate spellings that are more familiar and less visually shocking to TO readers. TO uses about 9 different spellings per sound hence it might take more than one spelling pattern to look like TO. dBLspellings:

Hau much du: aI o' yu: for th'' do:g. (NFB)
Hau m'ch du `I o' yu for th dog. (NFc)
HX m'C dU I O U fOr D' dog. (MF)
Hao m'ch du I ö ü for dh' dawg.

The traditionally spelled *how is a suitable digraph for /au/ as long as *o=ah and *w=uu. The problem with TO notation is its lack of consistency: *W and *O have at least 10 other interpretations. The use of caps (majuscles) for different sounds is a common practice in IPA ASCII notation. It is a compromise rather than an ideal solution. As shown above, the caps could be replaced by umlauts, e.g., ü, if they were available. They are available in the Latin I character set.

When spelling teachers talk about the English vowels,
they mention 13 of the 18 or more vowels and blends.
shown in black below

Diagram:  13 English Vowels
diphthongs shown in green
Front          -        Central        -        Back             

sit skid i ih index	sea i, eel very shwi	sofa ' acute unstressed	use iu, Uü bouy ui  uy	ooze u, w oo fwd dude sue	hook u' uu gvd shvd soot	High
set chef e eh elbow	say safe A  ei avian	such svfr u ^ up	boy oi  oy soil	owe /ou/ o'  ou sow, so show	awe /o/ aw  o, hawk saw	Mid
sat/sqt ae, a at, ax sax	sigh `I  y  ai eye ay aisle	calm a ah Sara want	buy I  ai aisle/ail ice/ais	owl /au/ ao au X aoch scowl	hot /a/ o sOks sahks	Low
air Ar, er fare scare	ire Ir ayr tire sire	are ar car scar	her/hR R 'r father sir	our aor flour sour	or or oar soar	ear Er, ir mere sear
dBLspel notation is shown in red when it does not correspond to NF Folik treats a as /ah/. DS uses the TO convention: a=/ae/, q=/ah/, & o=/awe/

The table shows the cardinal positions for 18 vowels and 7 r-blends. The notation shown can be used for invented spelling. Another table would have to be used to convert from the broad phonemic notation to TO.

In diphthongs, the u refers to /oo/ or /uu/, not to uh. nau=n/ae/-/oo/ or n/ah/-/uu/

A passage written in New Follick Double Spell.

It iz an ofn il'streitd fact that th spelng ov th Inglish langwij iz inc'nsistnt, and I wount repeet ol th igzampls hir. In spait ov its inc'nsist'nsy [move, cove, love] [moov, couv, luhv],   I pers'n'ly fInd it sou biutifwl that I am opouzd tw olmoust eny  pr'pouzl tw cheinj it. Yet, I hav atempt'd tw dezIn an Inglish speling sistim that wuud wrk strictly acording tw rwlz, hwail inheritng sumthing ov th tradish'nl biuty. Becoz mI Idi'z on th subject hav bin nirly stAb'l for sum yirz nau, I thot I shvd pr'zent it tw hoomevr wants tu reed it. It iz ment az a siryus propouzl, olthO it mey olsou be luukt upon az a dem'nstreishn ov how striktly aplaing rwlz leedz tw a Uzhuoly f'mily'r but sumtImz b'zar rezults."

Double spell conventions

Double spell provides two alternatives, one that optimizes economy and one that is a littl more intuitive to readers of TO. wwd might therefore be spelled wuud if there are doubts about the ability of the reader to recognize the shorter sound sign. Both systems are completely consistent. O=owe=ou.

From Double Spell to Cut Spelling

Double spell can be converted to CS in one step using the Spelling Converter. The converter, however, is dictionary based rather than rule based. It would be better if we could have rules.

luv - lov (lauv)

moov - mov (mauv)

Alphabetic Method

recognition of patterns, recognition of sound, recognition of meaning.
Almost universal from the early days of Greece and Rome until the end of the middle ages. It assumed that familiarity with the forms and names of letters helped the pupil to recognize and pronounce words. Pupils learned the names of the letters in their alphabetic sequence. Two letter combinations were then spelled and pronounced until they were wel known, and then lthree four and five letter combinations, forming either nonsense units, syllables or words.

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Key: [']unstressed uh or schwa, hvk=hook, o=awe, ou=owe, iu=you, hai=hI=high, eij=Aj=age, svn=sun, i=somewhere between ee and ih, y=closer to ee (but unstressed), ie or ee for ee. w=oo,

A	ei	ei	ey
E	ea	ee	e, y
I	.	.	.
O OWE/ow/ou	.	.	...
OO LOSE/looz/lwz	.	.	.
U USE/Uz/iuz	iu	.	.
UU HOOK/huuk/hvk	v	.	.
u UP/up/uhp	u	.	.

References

Kessler, Brett. 1997. Regularity in the phonemic subsystem of english spelling: A study of 4,724 words to determine the degree of spelling regularity. http://bhasha.stanford.edu/~kessler/spellings/spellings.htm

MacMahon, M.K.C. 1890? Henry Sweet's System of Shorthand. Shaw liked it so much to say that all that was needed was to beautify . Current. 1890. maybe 1980

Smalley, Wm. A. et al. 1964. Orthographic Studies: Articles on new writing systems. United Bible Societies.

Eco, Umberto. 1990. Search for the Universal Language? London:Blackwell

Wells. 1990. Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. London: Blackwell

To communicate anything about this page, contact Dr. Steve Bett

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To communicate anything about this page, contact Dr. Steve Bett

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Developed April, 1997, at the Lamar University -ECRC, Orange, Texas.
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