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Does
English have a dyslexic orthography?
McLuhan wrote that the alphabet, unlike previous writing systems, could be mastered by anyone in a few hours. By an alphabet, McLuhan meant a consistent set of correspondences between the simple sounds [or phonemes] of the language and the written symbols used to represent these sounds [graphemes]. What could be mastered in a few hours was 20 to 40 sound signs - the exact number depending on the language being represented. The task of associating 40 sound categories with 40 graphic shapes is not that daunting. It is true that the average person can memorize 40 paired associates in a few hours particularly if a mnemonic is employed. For example, the Phoenician letter names were typically the names of common objects that started with the letter's sound. It would be as if our letter names were ox, building, [cup], door, goad, ...instead of ey, bee, [see], dee,... To make things simpler, the shapes of the letters resembled their names, the letter Ahks [alef] looked like an ox head, the letter Building [beyt] looked like a building or a floor plan for a house, the letter Door [daleth] looked something like a door... The notion that an alphabet should be pictographic [shape suggests name] and acrophonic [name suggests sound] was borrowed from the Egyptians. The Semites added an alphabetic order because the same collection of shapes were used for their number system. A=1, B=2, D=3, etc. Historians have attributed the rapid spread of the northern semitic alphabet to its simplicity and ease of teaching. [alphabet defined ] [history] Compare the task of memorizing 20 to 40 sound-signs to the task of learning what remains of the English alphabet. There are only about 40 simple sounds in the English language but the traditional code represents them over 400 different ways. This suggests that English employs a very inefficient code and that the English writing system might be ten times as difficult to learn as the writing systems or codes for Spanish or Italian. According to Dewey (1971), each simple sound in the English language is associated not with one but with and average of 14.7 different letters or letter combinations. [letters associated with the vowel in RULE] Some researchers who have compared reading and spelling skills across languages have concluded that most of the problems identified as dyslexia or associated with low literacy rates in the U.S. are directly attributable to the needless complexity of the traditional English spelling system [TES]. This complexity is largely lacking in the writing systems of most languages. Cases of dyslexia and illiteracy after four years of schooling are extremely rare in Italy, Spain, Turkey, Finland, and other countries with highly phonemic or transparent orthographies. Simpler codes lead to greater mastery of reading and writing, fewer failures, and reduced learning time. If the English spelling system or code is ten times as complex as the spelling systems for Spanish and Italian; it is no wonder that school children in Spain and Italy can achieve in one year what it takes English speaking children four to six years to achieve. When words are spelled the way they sound, it is relatively easy to spell any word you can pronounce. In an alphabetic or highly phonemic writing system, such as Italian or Spanish, the way a word is spelled is a guide to its pronunciations. Literacy expert, Frank Laubach, claimed that English had the worst spelling system in the world. It is certainly true that it is ten times more complex and inconsistent than it needs to be. Dr. A.J. Ellis showed that the 26 letters could have 658 different significations. 40 sounds should be represented with about 40 symbols not 600*. [The number of different spellings one can identify depends on the size of the dictionary. In an abridged 70,000 word dictionary, Dewey found 561 different ways to represent 42 sounds. ] In 1890, the philologist, Henry Ellis, suggested a simpler code for English. This was later promoted as New Spelling and in 1960 became the basis of Pitman's Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA). ITA was not a methodology but simply a correspondence table where each symbol was associated with one and only one sound. In English, each of the 42 sounds in the language can be spelled an average of 14.7 different ways. In ITA, each sound was spelled just one way. The table below shows 18 of the 29 different ways that the /u:/ sound is written in English and illustrates the complexity of the English writing code or transcription conventions. How
many ways does the traditional orthography spell the vowel sound in
rule?
due to the particular methodology employed. The percentages in column 1 reflect dictionary frequencies. Samples of text from newspapers, books, and magazines would yield different frequencies. ITA is similar to WES but replaces [oo] with a symbol that looks like overlapping zeros for the /u:/ sound. Fortunately, 75% of the words that rhyme use only 4 different vowel spellings. In other words, knowing the sound, a student should be able to guess the correct spelling 75% of the time after four tries. With ITA [Pitman's Initian Teaching Alphabet], the student should be able to guess the correct spelling 100% of the time after one try. ITA spelling was basically a systematic alternative to invented spelling. ITA was an alternative to guessing or inventing the spelling of familiar pronunciations or guessing the pronounciation of unfamiliar strings of letters. In the 1960's, Sir James Pitman promoted an augmented roman alphabet to be used as an initial teaching alphabet or ITA. Pitman believed that a consistent orthography would simplify teaching across any methodology. There was some basis for this optimism. Phonics is often not the approach used to teach children in Spain or Italy.
ITA was extensively researched in the early 1970's [see Downing].
Children could learn ITA almost as easily as children in other countries
could learn their consistent spelling system. The shortfall has be
attributed to the inability of parents to help and the shortage of books
written in ITA. In the U.S. and England, most parents were not
literate in ITA.
With ITA, student's quickly picked up the idea of how an alphabet is supposed to work but were left to their own devices when the time came to transition to TES. No organized attempt was made to help children get from toon as in *cartoon to *tune. In the 4th grade, children were expected to abandon ITA for TES. The reading transition went fairly smoothly and children trained in ITA were able to retain their advantage. Spelling was another matter. Many children had problems trying to respell ITA words that did not match TES. This is understandable since 60% of the words did not match. Given the fact that ITA worked regardless of the teaching methodology and with serious gaps in the support system [insufficient materials, no assistance from parents, no consistent teaching methology, lack of linguistic sophistication on the part of the teachers...], why was it abandoned? Basically, it was a fad and all fads soon loose their luster. ITA was not understood by parents. ITA was not supported by the major educational publishers. It was more costly than traditional approaches to the teaching of reading and was deemed administratively inconvenient. Had the ITA been incorporated in a proven teaching methodology it would have been twice as effective but this never happened. Interest in phonics has been revived. Is there any chance that ITA could be revived? It is possible. Except for government support, the conditions are as favorable as any time in history. In 1970, a school had to buy a library of ITA books and materials. Today, an individual teacher with a classroom computer could generate all of the needed materials. There is a vast library of digitized books on the Internet as well as an on-line converter that will change the spelling from TES to New Spelling. [New Spelling and Fonetic are non-ligatured versions of ITA]. Teachers could easily generate their own materials.
Except for its spelling code, English would have the simplest grammar of all European languages. Clearning up the code would make English easier to learn and the clear choice for an international language. In the early 1800's, Noah Webster remarked, "Letters, the most useful invention that ever blessed mankind, lose a part of their value by no longer being representatives of the sounds originally annexed to them." The effect is, "to destroy the benefits of the alphabet." Webster was aware that there was a time in English history when the language had a functional alphabet. Tenth Century clerics devised a Latin based alphabet for English that made it possible to "spell words as they were pronounced and pronounce words as they were spelled." Could the restoration of the benefits of the alphabet be as simple as restoring the Saxon alphabet? Could the usefulness of the alphabet be restored by restoring the sounds originally annexed to the letters? Spelling reformers such as Webster and Franklin desired a closer connection between spelling and pronunciation. Both desired alphabets that allowed people to pronounce words as they are spelled. Benjamin Franklin, a printer by trade, even produced one. The link between spelling and pronunciation was lost in the Great Vowel Shift [ca. 1400 AD]. Prior to that time there had been some quirky spellings introduced by Norman French scribes but the basic sound system still matched Latin. Now 60% of the words in the dictionary do not match the pronunciation guide. To make matters worse, the vowels in some words did not shift. This created code overlaps where words that are spelled the same have different pronunciations. This is the theme of the poem below and a more famous one called The Chaos. It is important for teachers to be clear about the problem. It is
important to be clear about the complexities of the English writing system
and their social impact even if no solution is at hand. This paper
suggest a possible solution: the restoration of the alphabet.
However, the restoration of the last consistent alphabet used for English
is probably more difficult today than it was 300 years ago when Noah Webster
and Benjamin Franklin made their recommendations. The Rules of Rhyming The connection between spelling and pronunciation has been lost
Almost anyone can come up with a more consistent way to spell English words. Two alternative phonemic codes are shown above [and also below]. The new spellings are consistent but appear odd. They can be easily sounded out by referring to a correspondence table. However, they are not what we are used to: Until the new associates [such as a=ah and i=ee] are fully memorized, they may cause us to stumble. The sheer number of alternatives to TES has tended to dilute the support for any one proposal and prevent any rationalization of the orthography. With 1000's of simpler more efficient codes, agreement on one is difficult. Any phonemic reform of English would require respelling 60% of the words in the dictionary. This is no problem for children or ESL learners, but it is more of an adjustment than most adult English speakers want to handle. Although IPA is a little hard to read, there are a number of phonemic proposals that can be easily deciphered. The objection to them is that they cannot be read as fast as TES. Speed readers read word patterns. They do not try to sound out words. Half way reform proposals which preserve word patterns such as removing all of the silent letters [for example, the silent e in give and have] have not fared any better than full reforms. Those who have completed primary school prefer to keep a familiar code no matter how inefficient and inconsistent to having to learn a new one. Given the choice, they prefer to spell giv, liv and hav with a redundant and misleading terminal e. Most people are unaware of the fact that English lost its alphabet in 1400. An alphabet is a consistent set of correspondences between sounds and symbols (letters). Alphabetical writing systems are highly phonemic. Old English (Anglo Saxon) was over 90% phonemic or consistent with its correspondence table. Modern English is only 40% phonemic. It is consistent with its pronunciation guide only 40% of the time. What values should be assigned to
the letters
Most of the separation between spelling and pronunciation occurred during the 14th century during what was called the "great vowel shift." The vowel shift did not affect the short vowels but shifted the long vowels to a more closed jaw pronunciation: In many words, /a/ [ah] came to be pronounced /ae/ [ash], /ae/ became /e/ [eh], /e/ became /i:/ [machine, si], and /i:/ became /ai/.[aisle] . Pronunciation changes over time. To preserve a consistent alphabet, when the pronunciation of a word changes, its spelling also has to change. Countries that set up academies to revise spelling to keep it aligned with pronunciation have managed to maintain their alphabets. England never set up an academy and the 18th century dictionary writers were reluctant to reestablish a connection between speaking and writing after the great vowel shift of the 14th century. The solution that has been suggested for the past 300 years is to adopt a phonemic notation and spell words as they are spelled in the dictionary pronunciation guide. The chief problem with this solution is that it changes the spelling of 60% of the words in English. Two examples of the phonemic spelling of English are shown above. Literate readers read logographically or in terms of whole word patterns - they rarely sound out a word on the basis of individual letters. Thus changing the look of a word for speed readers will reduce their reading speed. It is not that literate readers cannot read a passage that is spelled phonetically, it is just that they cannot read it as fast. After a phonemic reform, it may take as long as a year for whole word English readers to recover their reading speed. The ones that benefit from alphabetical or consistent spelling are the young not the old. With a better code, the young could acquire a high level of literacy four to ten times as fast as they do at present. Literacy is largely a decoding and encoding skill. Readers and writers begin by associating written symbols [graphic shapes] with spoken sounds. Since there are only about 40 significant sounds in English speech, an efficient code would associate them with 40 symbols. 40 sounds would be referenced 40 ways. Each sound [phoneme] would be referenced by one and only one letter or letter combination. With the traditional code, however, the 40 sounds are referenced in 615 different ways [Ellis, 1900]. Each letter is associated with an average of not one but 14 different sounds [Dewey, 1971]. [Here is a list of 18 of the 29 different symbol configurations used to represent the /u:/ sound]. Students must associate 26 letters with 40 sounds in over 400 different ways. Instead of learning 40 paired associates students must learn over 400. The complexity of the orthographic code makes the learning task ten times more difficult. It is over 10 times easier to associate a shape with one sound than it is to associate it with 14. The advantages of an alphabetic reform are not quite as great as reformers claim. One reason is because the base pronunciation is not necessarily the same as the one the child uses. After the alphabet was restored, the spelling pronunciation of [tomato] would be taw-mah-tow - not tow-mey-tow. The child might have to learn two dialects, one for spelling and one for conversing with his or her peers. A phonemic spelling reform would not have an immediate effect on the way that people pronounced words. The traditional (mid 18th century) English spelling system [TES] is
based on the notion that the business of spelling is to represent the
origin and history of a word instead of its sound and meaning. The
playwright George Bernard Shaw (1941)] argued that this reduced the
alphabet to absurdity. TES can be called non-alphabetical
since the spelling of more than 50% of the words do not match the
dictionary pronunciation guide. The disconnect between spelling and
pronunciation limit the effectiveness of the phonics approach to the
teaching of reading.
The spelling ice which according to the Saxon correspondence table would be pronounced /eesuh/ comes from the original Saxon spelling: [is] /ees/. The current spelling does show how the word was historically spelled in the 13th century. (To understand how it was pronounced, one would have to consult the Saxon correspondence table) As etymological or historical spellings, most high frequency words go back to Middle English. Few go all the way back to Anglo Saxon: [e.g., eye-ogle]. The problem comes from the fact that we no longer pronounce the word /ees/ or /ees-uh/. To maintain the alphabet, when the pronunciation of [ice] changed in the early 14th century, the spelling should have been changed to [ais]. Dr. Samuel Johnson, who wrote the first popular dictionary, felt that it was folly to imagine that the dictionary could embalm language and preserve its words and phrases from mutability. He saw no reason to standardize English spelling beyond the word level because he felt that what changed the most was pronunciation. As it turns out, English pronunciation is probably more standardized today than in 1755. Compared to the changes that occurred in the 14th century, English pronunciation has hardly changed at all from the way it was spoken in London in 1755. Some words and phrases have dropped out of favor and new words and phrases have been added. Most of Johnson's spellings, however, have survived intact. We have a choice, either obscure the etymology or historical spelling of the word or obscure the pronunciation of the word. Traditional English Spelling [TES] obscures the spelling. An Alphabet for Spelling Pronunciation - an alternative to a
prescribed dialect
To make SP work, the letters and letter combinations would have to be associated with specific sounds. Spelling pronunciation requires a real alphabet. To deal with the shortage of vowel letters relative to the number of vowel sounds in English speech, vowel letters could have up to two sounds each. To distinguish which of the two sounds is being referenced, pronunciation guides could continue to use diacritics. [itch = 'ich, each = ich]. Saxon usually marked the short or checked vowel with a double consonant [tch, ck] but this practice was not extended to all the French and Latin loan words. What symbol-sound [grapheme-phoneme] correspondences make the most sense? Many linguists recommend the historical one: The one used for OE [old English] and ME [middle English]. This augmented Latin alphabet is basically the same one used by most countries that adopted the Roman alphabet. In the 9th Century, English had an alphabet and a highly consistent orthography known as West Saxon. The alphabet was augmented by the addition of the wynn, thorn, eth, and the ash. Wynn was replaced by the W, and the thorn and eth were replaced by the digraph, TH. The ash [æ] is still needed to distinguish the sound of [at, ash, parallel] from three other a-sounds [are, want, water], [ago, sofa], [all, what]. Besides [æ], English has several other vowel sounds that are not found in Latin. The mid vowel in Latin was simply an unstressed A as in [ago and sofa]. In English the mid vowels have much more importance and IPA distinguishes three related but slightly different sounds with [3:, the turned v, and the turned e]. The sound in HER and HURT /h3:_/ is different from the sound in HARE /her/, HEART /hart/ or OTHER /^th'r/ One can make these distinctions by using a marked r, e, and a. [h'er, h'ert, her, hart, 'ago, 'ath'r]. The marker changes the letter that follows into a lax central vowel. Except for tradition, one could use the marker alone: h'r, h'rt, her hart 'go. The apostrophe could indicate an elision and mean that the vowel symbol has been left out or alternatively that the apostrophe is actually a schwa-postrophe: [h'r, h'rt, her hart 'go]. [The symbol font, available on all modern computers, replaces the apostrophe with a turned epsilon (') which is quite similar to IPA's turned e.] Latin recognized a long and short pronunciation of five vowel letters but did not distinguish them. In other words, five vowel letters were used to represent 10 vowel sounds. It was possible for some countries, e.g., Spain, to do away with 3 vowel sounds /^-', i, u/ so that a referred solely to [ah] and not ambiguously to [ah or uh] and i referred solely to [ee] and not [ee and ih]. [o] can still refer to two sounds [owe] and [awe] and the long e is typically represented as a digraph [ei or ey] as in [rey]. There is no [uh] or [ih] sound in Spanish: [Only gringos say, "hahs-tuh and cah-muh" (hasta cama)]. The short u [as in hook] is also absent. Conclusion Spelling pronunciation [or pronouncing words as they are spelled] can work if an alphabet is restored. It doesn't work when a letter can refer to a dozen different sounds. The best alphabet to restore, according to the Oxford linguist, Henry Sweet, is the historical one. The augmented Latin alphabet is [with a few exceptions] the same one that is used in every country that adopted the Roman alphabet. Spelling pronunciation, since it requires that every letter be articulated, still requires a mild spelling reform. Words that cannot be pronounced and understood by a native speaker need to be respelled. Misleading silent letters probably need to be removed. There is no point, other than tradition, to retain the e in have. This only confuses the use of e as a long vowel marker in words such as behave. To be consistent, "You have to behave." should be written "Yu hav to behave." Spelling pronunciation would dictate that behave be pronounced beh-haav-uh, the way the word was pronounced before the 14th century. Today the word is generally pronounced biheiv [bee-hay-v], but behave [beh-haav-uh] can still be understood. As long as a native speaker can understand the meaning of a spelling pronunciation, respelling is not required. The number of words requiring respellings may be quite low. Certainly nothing close to the 60% required by a phonemic reform. Once the student knows that f and v are so closely related that the letter f was used in Saxon for today's v sound, perhaps there is no need to change of to 'ov. Most people prononce what as /hwot/ or /wot/ where o=awe. If A is always pronounced [ah] /a:/ and a new symbol is used to distinguish hat from hot, the what spelling can probably be retained. Spelling pronunciation does not have to match a particular dialect such as General American or educated British. It just has to be close enough to be understood. ITA worked but not as well as predicted. It should have been nearly ten times as easy as TES but the research only documented a 200% improvement in the mastery of reading and writing skills. About half of this gain was lost when the student started reading and writing in TES. Much of this loss can be attributed to the fact that no lessons were given on how to move from ITA spelling to TES spelling. Children whose traditional spelling is logical and consistent, of course, retain their 200%+ advantage. Spanish students never have to learn that the traditional way to spell thru is through. ITA is one of hundreds of viable alternative phonemic notations for English. The ITA code is not quite as elegant as Saxon, the original phonemic notation for Old English, because it tries to retain the shifted long vowel sounds. As a result, diphthongs cannot be sounded out but must be memorized as unique two letter symbols. ai [ah+ee] = ie yu = ue ei/ey [eh+ee] = ae. The addition of a silent e to mark long vowels works but doesn't make much phonological sense. For spelling pronunciation to work, every letter needs to be sounded out or pronounced. The updated Saxon code seems to be optimal if the goal is to restore the English alphabet for use in spelling pronunciation. An alphabet is basically a sound - symbol correspondence table. The Saxon alphabet associated no more than two sounds with each letter. The compromised alphabet in use since 1875 associates an average of over 14 sounds with each letter. The spelling pronunciation approach gets around two key objections to a more phonemic reform such as ITA: [1] It does not respell nearly as many words and [2] it is pan-dialect. The artificial spelling pronunciation dialect can be understood by all English speakers. Unlike many proposed reforms of English spelling, the SP proposal does not sever the connection with the past. Restoring the Saxon alphabet makes Old English and Middle English more accessible. ITA could be revived today in any classroom with an Internet ready computer. However, there may be some better options available that are more in line with international spelling and less visually disruptive. One could, for instance, restore the Saxon alphabet and use it for spelling pronunciation. Being able to pronounce words as they are spelled would have definite advantages. One can memorize a symbol-sound correspondence chart in about 2 hours and become literate in an consistent code in 40 hours or less. Learning how to deal with the code overlaps, irregular spellings and the other inconsistencies of traditional English orthography takes considerably longer. The goal of an ITA is to get children up to speed quickly and to postpone frustration. With an ITA, children can employ their entire vocabulary in their writing since it allows them to spell as they speak. In the digital world, codes are updated every six months or so.
It is much more difficult to update a spelling code due to the weight of
habit and tradition and the fact that there are so many code
choices. Any one of the improved codes would assist those
struggling to learn how to read and write in English.
Go back to the top and see if you can answer
the 5 questions. Dyslexic is probably not a the best adjective for
either learners who are having trouble with words or writing systems that
are troublesome. Please send your answers to the author at
sbett@mailcity.com. A digital version of this article with links to
20 related articles on ITA and spelling reform is available at http://victorian.fortunecity.com/vangogh/555/Spell/MSJ-article.html.
SPELLING LINK PAGE victorian.fortunecity.com/vangogh/555/Spell/sitemap-l.htm References Extended Bibliography Yule Bibliography Bett, Steve T. [1998] How many ways can you spell DAY? HTML DOC Burchfield, Robert (1985) The English Language. Oxford University Press Carney, Edward. (1994) A Survey of English Spelling. London:Routledge Crystal, David. (1987) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Crystal, David. 1995. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge University Press. Dewey, Godfrey. (1971) English Spelling: Roadblock to Reading. New York: Teachers College Press. Dewey, Godfrey. 1970. Relative Frequency of English Spelling. NY: Teachers College Press. Downing, John. 1967. Evaluating the Initial Teaching Alphabet. London: Cassell. Downing, John & Leong, C-K. 1982. The psychology of reading. NY: Macmillan Publishing Co. Eco, Umberto. (1995) The Search for the Perfect Language. London, Blackwell Ellis, Alexander. (1750) On Early English Pronunciation. Chaucer Society. Campbell (1983) Old English Grammar. Oxford University Press Gimson, A.C. (1980) An Introduction to the Pronounciation of English. Gray, William S. (1956) The Teaching of Reading and Writing: an international survey. Unesco. Hanna, P.R., Hanna, J.S. Hodges, R.E. & Rudorf, E.H. (1966). PhonemeGrapheme Correspondences as Cues to Spelling Improvement, Doc.OE-32008, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare.USGPO Hanna, Paul (1992) Spelling: Structure and Strategies. University Press of American Laubach, Frank C. (1960) Let's Reform Spelling - Why and How. NY: New Readers Press Pitman, Sir James. (1965) Communication by Signs, New Scientist. 25 (433) pp 580-1. March, 1965 Pitman, Sir James & Robert St. John. (1970) Alphabets and Reading. London: Pitman Ronthaler, Edw. and Lais, Edw. (1986) Dictionary of Simplified American Spelling. American Literacy Council Hass, Werner. (1969). Alphabets for English. Manchester University Press. Hass, W. (1970). Phono-Graphic Translation. Manchester University Press. Ives, Kenneth. (1979). Written Dialects & Spelling Reform. Progresiv Publishers, Chicago Johnson, Samuel. (1755) . A Dictionary of the English language: London: Knapton. Jones, Daniel. (1950). The Pronunciation of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Laubach, Frank C. (1996). Let's Reform Spelling -- Why and How. New Readers Press. New York. Lindgren, Harry. (1969). Spelling Reform: A New Approach. Alpha. Sampson, G. (1985) Writing Systems. London: Hutchinson. Scragg, D.G. (1974) A History of English Spelling. Manchester: Manchester University Press Sweet, Henry (1891) A New English Grammar Zachrissen, R.E. (1913, 1971) Pronunciation of English Vowels 1400-1700. New Yor: AMS Press
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Home > Social Science > Linguistics and Human Languages > Languages > Specific Languages > English > Grammar, Usage, and Style > Spelling >
Analysis
of the list of the 500 most frequent words in English.
