Historical Foundations of Modern English Spelling.The alphabetic way of writing (unlike hieroglyphic, pictographic and syllabic writing) was originally based on a phonetic principle: it was designed to give an accurate graphic representation of pronunciation by using letters to indicate sounds. Mod E spelling displays many deviations from this principle. The differences between the pronunciation and the spelling of words are obvious, especially to those who are familiar with the employment of Latin letters in other languages. The reasons for these discrepancies and for the peculiarities of English spelling are to be found in the history of English sounds. OE spelling was phonetic: OE notaries employed Latin characters in accord with the Latin written convention, to put down English words as best they could. They attempted to use a separate letter for each distinct sound; the sound values of the letters were for the most part the same as in Latin. Their spellings, however, were not absolutely consistent, for some letters — as far as we can judge today — indicated two or more sounds: the letter 3 stood for four different phonemes, c — for two; f, ð, þ and s indicated two allophones each (which developed into phonemes later). On the whole, OE spellings were fairly good transcriptions of words, made with the help of Latin characters. ME spelling innovations incorporated many sound changes which had taken place since the 9th-10th c, and yet spelling had generally become more ambiguous and conventional. In many instances the one-to-one correspondence of letter and sound had been lost. More letters than before had two sound values: o stood for [o], [u], long [ב:]and [o:]; c — for [s] and [k]; g — for [g] and [d3], etc.; u could even indicate three sounds — the vowels [u] and [y] and the consonant [v]. One and the same sound was commonly shown by different means: [d3] could be indicated by g, j or dg, [k] — by k, c and q, etc. The digraphs introduced in ME look familiar to the modern reader, since many of them are still in use, but their application in ME was rather contradictory: so that they did not make spelling either more precise or more phonetic. For instance, both ou and ow were used for [u:] and [ou]; double o stood for the open and close long [ב:]and [o:] alongside 0; long [e:] and [ε:] were shown indiscriminately by [ie], double e and the single letter e. The use of digraphs was a digression from the phonetic principle, for it was based on conventional association between sounds and their graphic representation (e.g. th or dg did not indicate sequences of sounds, but were used as symbols of single sounds, [θ, ð] and [d3]). The conventional principle of spelling was later reinforced by the fixation of the written form of the word in printing and by extensive sound changes. The introduction of printing and the spread of printed books perpetuated the written forms of the words reproduced from the manuscripts. They reflected the pronunciation of the age and the accepted devices of spelling; numerous variant spellings characteristic of the manuscripts were employed unrestrictedly in the printed books of the late 15th and the 16th c. The phoneticians and spelling reformers of the 16th c. strove to restrict the freedom of variation and to improve English orthography by a more consistent use of letters and digraphs, and by the introduction of new symbols. They insisted upon a strict distinction between u and v when used to indicate a vowel and a consonant: [u] and [v], e.g. Early NE loue, selues, vnripe, vnshaken later spelt as love, selves, unripe, unshaken; upon the regular use of the final mute e to show the length of the vowel in the preceding syllable, e.g., rode, rose, and even beene, moone (though in the two latter words length was shown by double letters). They introduced new digraphs to show the difference between some open and close vowels, namely the digraph ea for [ε: ] as distinguished from e, ee, and ie used for the closed [e:], and the digraph oa alongside 0 in open syllables for [ב:], as contrasted to oo showing a long closed [o:]. Cf. ME eech, seke with [ε:] and [e:] and Early NE each, seek; ME hooly and Early NE holy. The use of double consonants became less frequent, except in traditional spellings like kiss, sell, but double letters were sometimes employed to show that the preceding vowel was short: Early NE sitten, sholt, dipped (later sit, shot, dipped). The activities of the scholars in the period of normalisation — late 17th and the 18th c. — had a stabilising effect on the development of English spelling. The dictionaries and grammars fixed the written forms of the words as obligatory standards; numerous variant spellings of the Early NE period went out of use. Apart from the standardisation of spelling — which was certainly a great achievement of that age — only a few innovations were made: a few new digraphs were adopted with borrowed words, such as ph, ps — NE photograph, psychology, ch — NE chemistry, scheme and machine, g — genre. In the 18th c. the sound changes slowed down. Standard pronunciation (later known as RP — Received Pronunciation) and standard spelling were firmly established, and the gap between the spoken and written form of the word was perpetuated. The conventional use of letters had prevailed over their original, “phonetic” use.
Glossary The Great Vowel Shift – the name given to a series of changes of long vowels between the 14th and the 18th c. During this period all the long vowels became closer or were diphthongised.
Literature A) Principal: 1. Rastorgueva T.A. A History of English. – M., 1983. – Chapter XIII (P. 184-188), Chapter XIV (P.188-219). B) Supplementary: 1. Залесская Л.Д. Пособие по истории английского языка для заочных отделений факультетов английского языка педагогических институтов. – М., 1984. – С.62-66, 83-86. 2. Иванова И.П., Чахоян Л.П., Беляева Т.М. История английского языка. – СПб., 1999. – С.69-97.
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