INGGLISH AZ IT IZ RITEN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 282, 17 November 1944, Page 6

INGGLISH AZ IT IZ RITEN

The Case For Simplified Spelling

Condensed from a recent talk broadcast from 4YA

By PROF

R.

LAWSON

HE art of spelling, or to give it its Greek name, orthography, is a difficult one to acquire in English, though once in early Anglo-Saxon days it was quite easy; for then the spelling was phonetic. Words were spelt as they were to be pronounced. And this indeed is the principle that came to be adopted in European languages. In Chinese the written characters do not represent sounds, but ideas. In ancient Egyptian writing the hieroglyphic symbols consisted of pictures and arbitrary signs. There was no attempt to do what was later done by some genius, i.e., to offer pictures, not of things, but, as it were, pictures of the elements of sounds issuing from the mouth-in other words, an alphabet, a phonetic alphabet. But all things change. The great Roman Emperor Augustus spoke contemptuously of the theoretical spelling tules laid down by the grammarians, and said that Latin should be spelt as it was pronounced. One hundred years later, the great Roman critic, Quintilian, laid down the principle that the use of letters was to presérve the sounds, and that therefore Latin spelling should be phonetic. But those who use any language use it their own way, and as a rule they have no knowledge of the origin of words. Thus, one who knows Latin will spell occasion with two c’s and one s, and professor with one f and two s’s. But the average person just chances it, unless he has learned these and other catchy words from one of the innumerable spelling books that were and still are a standing reproach to English indifference to what planned spelling might do to diffuse our language widely and rapidly, dnd at the same time remove an intolerable burden from teacher and pupil. How many people, even among those who have some Latin, can spell rescission-the noun formed from a part of the Latin verb rescindere, "to cut back," hence "to rescind"? A rational spelling according to sound would be resizhon, for which no knowledge of Latin is required. But just think of r-e-s-c-i-ss-ion! Any shorthand writer ‘would be at home immediately with phonetic spelling, because when he hears, say, the word knock, he writes the sound n-o-k, or plague, pl-ae-g. But shorthand is too remote from daily use, and too liable to be misread, ever to become general. One Sound, One Character A better hope lies with the use of the international phonetic alphabet, now used in the best modern dictionaries both English and foreign, and becoming increasingly known in all schools in English-speaking countries. Most of the pupils in New Zealand’s secondary ey are quite at home with this t, and the University of New has issued a printed sheet with its characters for the use and guidance of teachers. The plan is simpleone sound, one character, and always the same character for the same sound. But this ideal will not come intyu

general public use for many generations yet, because the public are not prepared for it. The problem before the Simplified Spelling Society of Britain was to produce a system of reformed spelling within the limits of the,present alphabet of 26 letters. Of these 26 three are duplicates e.g., c is not wanted, except in ch; for cat is to be spelt kat, and peace is to be spelt peas. Also qg is not wanted, as it equals kw,_e.g., queen is kween; and x is not wanted, as it equals ks or gs; e.g. axe is spelt aks and example is egsample. Being thus confined to 23 letters to represent the sounds of English, nearly 50 in number, be it noted the persons working on the new system could not make, and did not attempt to make, a thoroughly scientific phonetic system. They have, however, produced a system, though they have definitely retained some spellings of small words in common use that do not fully conform to the system. Derision-Neutrality-Approval When you first see isolated words spelt in the new way such as speshal, dogz, meny, you will probably be moved to derision, but when you examine these as the necessary products of a carefully planned system, your . derision will give way to neutrality first, and finally to approval. You must remember that this system has been carefully evolved by a number of firstclass scholars in the past 40 years. Professor Gilbert Murray, the eminent classical translator, has for some years been president and, working with him, are men distinguished in science and letters. Among these I note the names of His Grace the late Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. William Temple, D.Litt. D.D., LL.D.), Professor Daniel Jones, Sir Henry Coward, Mus.Doc., H. G. Wells, Professor Spearman, Pro-

fessor Sir Percy Nunn, and a number of others. Hence the humorist and the scoffer must needs pause before they launch their shafts. Already a number of pamphlets have been. issued, and also a Dictionary, the work of Walter Ripman. A short sketch by H. G. Wells has also been issued. And there is a pamphlet showing the success of the experiment in 16 schools in Great Britain. The address of the secretary in Britain is Station Road, Wallsend-upon-Tyne, and the membership costs 1/- in English money. Some Examples The system in brief is this. Short vowels, a, e, i, 0, u, as in bat, bet, bit, pot, but. To form long vowels add e: ae, ee, ie, oe, ue; e.g., baet, beet, fiet, noet, buety, graet, cheef, ried, roem, duek, lJaet, leed, mien, groe, tuen. Other long vowels, aa as in paast, kaaf, kaam; uu as in fuul (=fool), puul (=pool), muun, ruud; oo as in fool (=full), pool (=pull), poot (= put). If you sound boot (now to be spelt buut) you will see how it differs from foot in the vowel. Foot is to be spelt exactly as it now is, as it rhymes with poot (put). So au as in taut; hence ought will be written aut. Note that th in thin differs from th in than, and hence it was necessary to use a double letter (a diagraph as it is called)-so than is written dhan and other is written udher; sh comes out in vishus, oeshan, konshens, kondishon; zh comes out in plezher, vizhon. Double r (rr) is retained after the short vowels a, o, and u, e.g., karry, sorry, hurry; but otherwise letters not sounded are not written. So we get riter, Jam, leter, frend. Anger is ang/ger, hanger is not changed — pronounce them and see ang-ger, hanger; likewise fing-ger, sing-er. Blows to Confidence Young children when being introduced to sounds and reading, writing and spelling, love this sort of play, which to them is experimental. They must rely on their senses — their eyes and ears and then on their reasoning powers. But just imagine how their confidence in themselves, in their ears and eyes and reasoning powers is crushed by the absurdities of our speliing. Just look at these wordssleep, keep, deep, weep-all very simple in the long vowel with a double e. But wait! What follows deep and keep? This

list: heap, chief, seize, police, people, key, quay, cedar, recede; that is 10 different ways of writing the vowel sound in deep. But stay! The poor suffering pupil is not through the bog yet (not to mention the harassed teacher); for two more demons await in this ee sound group of nuisances — these are anaemic and amoeba; the former with ae, the latter with oe. Admittedly these two words will not eccur in the primary school, but they will occur later in the secondary ‘school. Twelve ways of representing one sound! So you can see ‘how it is no exaggeration to say (as the experimenters have proved) that the reformed spelling would save hundreds of hours-some say fully 1000 hours of school life-in dictation, spelling, reading and writing. Just consider for a moment the word tational. R-a-s-h is rash, then surely rashonal is "rational." It is undoubtedly quite rational. But I hear someone say, "Oh, yes, but you can see this new spelling obscures the derivation. Just fancy spelling aneemik and _ rashonal." My answer is a question: How many people know or care anything about the’ derivation of anaemic or rational? Ask your friends and yourself and abide by the result. A Question of Ugliness But, someone says, the whole thing is ugly and grotesque. Those two epithets express bias and contempt, but they contain no reasoning. Is n-o-l-e-j uglier than knowledge or peepl than people? I can find no proof except in the superior emphasis of those who express their dislike. Turn the argument round the other way and suppose we had been accustomed to write nolej from our schooldays, would we not ridicule the ugly and grotesque look of knowledge. Now to return for a moment to the 10 nuisances that represent ee. Their nuisance power does not cease with themselves; for when the learner has grown accustomed to heap (ea) he finds that ea has another value in great, and that ef in seize has another value in vein and veil; and so the maze goes on endlessly winding and turning back and then forward without Ne is no clue to this labyrinth. Someone will say, "Yes, these arguments are quite convincing, but the greatest difficulty lies untouched, the difficulty of the! change over to the new from the old. What is to become of all. the books of reference and of the daily

Press?" This is undoubtedly the great est difficulty of all, but it is not insurmountable. First of all, the Simplified Spelling Society of Britain does not expect or advocate a sudden break from existing usage. It looks first of all to the gradual introduction of the system into schools and school books. Easy to Learn Anyone brought up on the existing spelling could with the devotion of half-an-hour to the study of the reformed alphabet. read the new spelling fairly easily. And those brought up on the new would have no difficulty in reading the old, as anyone will admit who has tead Shakespeare or Caxton in the original spelling. I find that mature people will not make the effort, and they criticise the appearance of certain words as compared with the appearance of existing words in a scattered, haphazard way, because they will not look at the system as a system. For example, in the system beauty is spelt buety, and full is spelt fool, therefore the new spelling.of beautiful is buetifool. Now of course it is open to anyone to say that this is not as good as the old spelling. Weil, I reply, whether it is or not cannot be proved, and secondly, the system leads logically to the new form in this word. Similarly, education becomes eduekaeshon. One may say this looks ugly, and is much longer than the existing form. Again I say, yes, it is longer, but it is clear, if you look at it as the logical outcome of the system. Ridicule is not argument-in fact it frequently denotes poverty of argument. To refer to humorists like Josh Billings and Artemus Ward proves nothing, or rather it tells in favour of the new spelling, for these humorists were keen observers, and in their own way they were exhibiting the fantastic absurdities which are imposed on our spoken word-it is as though we dressed a beautiful lady in a motley garb of 426 different bits of drapety in a disorderly jumble. I say 426 advisedly, for that is the computation of the number of ways in which our letters are used to express our sounds. How Did It Happen? How did all this come about? Largely through the printers from Caxton on for the next 200 years down to the publication of Johnson’s Dictionary in the middle of the 18th century: Johnson took the usage as he found it, he knew little of phonetics, indeed there was little known by anybody in his day. And so the spelling became fixed. But if you care to look at the spelling as it was in the 16th century, you will see tongue often spelt t-u-n-g, exactly as it appears in the new spelling. For the printers were the final fixers; before them were the men who worked on derivations real 6r imagined, and who often introduced French fashions into English spelling in the centuries following the Norman Conquest. But this is now a new world, and planning is taking the place of the old haphazard laissezfaire. Too long on this war-torn planet natural selection has taken its course‘it is time now for artificial selection. The world is in need of a * worldlanguage. English may become that world language; it may even become so withoft reformed spelling, but’ it will reach the goal far more quickly with reform than without, |