Spelling Reforms
The English Language originates from a Germanic language of the Indo-European family from several local languages brought by 6th century invaders.It has since spread throughout the British Isles and into various regions where Britain held overseas colonies. Today, as the second most spoken language in the world, it has been subjected to multiple prejudices concerning its acquisition, reception and learnability as a second language. As the language of business, science and technology, English should be easy to learn and comfortable to deal with. However, many people complain that English spelling is very hard to learn for foreigners as well as for native speakers. Hence, spelling reform is seen as a need to introduce a logical structure connecting the spelling and pronunciation of words. In this essay, I will discuss the former spelling reforms led by Webster and the others in the past, the reasons behind the numerous attempts in the past to reform English and why these reforms never really succeeded.
Before we look at the different spelling reforms proposed in the past, let us first examine how Modern English spelling system developed and why there are irregularities. During the Old English period, the Anglo-Saxon were the first writers of English and their basis for their spelling was the Roman alphabet, to which some of the older runes were attached. The spelling system of the West Saxon had very strict rules of parallelism between Old English phonological values and Latin symbols or symbol construction. Having more than one system of spelling, it depends on where texts were written. Although local dialect features were reflected in the orthography of words, there was a certain consistency approach within each dialect area. During King Alfred's reign, only a few contemporary Old English texts existed to allow a clear analysis of spelling. Spelling was fairly standardized and books were produced from a small area where there was little dialect
Before we look at the different spelling reforms proposed in the past, let us first examine how Modern English spelling system developed and why there are irregularities. During the Old English period, the Anglo-Saxon were the first writers of English and their basis for their spelling was the Roman alphabet, to which some of the older runes were attached. The spelling system of the West Saxon had very strict rules of parallelism between Old English phonological values and Latin symbols or symbol construction. Having more than one system of spelling, it depends on where texts were written. Although local dialect features were reflected in the orthography of words, there was a certain consistency approach within each dialect area. During King Alfred's reign, only a few contemporary Old English texts existed to allow a clear analysis of spelling. Spelling was fairly standardized and books were produced from a small area where there was little dialect
References: 1. David Graddol, Dick Leith and Joan Swann, English: history, diversity 2002 2. David Graddol, Dick Leith and Joan Swann, Describing Language 2002 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Webster 4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelling_reform