English spelling reform
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For centuries, there have been movements to reform the spelling of the
English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...
. It seeks to change
English orthography English orthography is the writing system used to represent spoken English, allowing readers to connect the graphemes to sound and to meaning. It includes English's norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation, word breaks, emphasis, and p ...
so that it is more consistent, matches pronunciation better, and follows the
alphabetic principle According to the alphabetic principle, letters and combinations of letters are the symbols used to represent the speech sounds of a language based on systematic and predictable relationships between written letters, symbols, and spoken words. The ...
. Common motives for spelling reform include quicker learning, cheaper learning, and making English more useful as an
international auxiliary language An international auxiliary language (sometimes acronymized as IAL or contracted as auxlang) is a language meant for communication between people from all different nations, who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primaril ...
. Reform proposals vary in terms of the depth of the linguistic changes and by their implementations. In terms of writing systems, most spelling reform proposals are moderate; they use the traditional
English alphabet The alphabet for Modern English is a Latin-script alphabet consisting of 26 letters, each having an upper- and lower-case form. The word ''alphabet'' is a compound of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, '' alpha'' and '' beta''. ...
, try to maintain the familiar shapes of words, and try to maintain common conventions (such as
silent e In English orthography, many words feature a silent (single, final, non-syllabic ‘e’), most commonly at the end of a word or morpheme. Typically it represents a vowel sound that was formerly pronounced, but became silent in late Middle En ...
). More radical proposals involve adding or removing letters or symbols, or even creating new alphabets. Some reformers prefer a gradual change implemented in stages, while others favor an immediate and total reform for all. Some spelling reform proposals have been adopted partially or temporarily. Many of the spellings preferred by
Noah Webster Noah ''Nukh''; am, ኖህ, ''Noḥ''; ar, نُوح '; grc, Νῶε ''Nôe'' () is the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5– ...
have become standard in the United States, but have not been adopted elsewhere (see
American and British English spelling differences Despite the various List of dialects of English, English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable variatio ...
). Harry Lindgren's proposal,
SR1 The Sr1 is a class of electric locomotives built for VR of Finland. These 25 kV locomotives were built in the Soviet Union at the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Factory between 1973 and 1985. Two additional locomotives of this class were b ...
, was once popular in
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
.


History

Modern English spelling developed from about 1350 onwards, when—after three centuries of Norman French rule—English gradually became the official language of England again, although very different from before 1066, having incorporated many words of French origin (battle, beef, button, etc.). Early writers of this new English, such as
Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He wa ...
, gave it a fairly consistent spelling system, but this was soon diluted by Chancery clerks who re-spelled words based on French orthography. English spelling consistency was dealt a further blow when
William Caxton William Caxton ( – ) was an English merchant, diplomat and writer. He is thought to be the first person to introduce a printing press into England, in 1476, and as a printer (publisher), printer to be the first English retailer of printed boo ...
brought the
printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in wh ...
to London in 1476. Having lived in mainland Europe for the preceding 30 years, his grasp of the English spelling system had become uncertain. The Belgian assistants whom he brought to help him set up his business had an even poorer command of it. As printing developed, printers began to develop individual preferences or " house styles". Furthermore, typesetters were paid by the line and were fond of making words longer. However, the biggest change in English spelling consistency occurred between 1525, when William Tyndale first translated the New Testament, and 1539, when
King Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disag ...
legalized the printing of English Bibles in England. The many editions of these Bibles were all printed outside England by people who spoke little or no English. They often changed spellings to match their
Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...
orthography. Examples include the silent ''h'' in ''ghost'' (to match Dutch , which later became ), ''aghast'', ''ghastly'' and ''gherkin''. The silent ''h'' in other words—such as , and —was later removed. There have been two periods when spelling reform of the English language has attracted particular interest.


16th and 17th centuries

The first of these periods was from the middle of the 16th to the middle of the 17th centuries AD, when a number of publications outlining proposals for reform were published. Some of these proposals were: * (''On the Rectified and Amended Written English Language'') in 1568 by Sir Thomas Smith, Secretary of State to Edward VI and Elizabeth I. * ' in 1569 by John Hart,
Chester Herald Chester Herald of Arms in Ordinary is an officer of arms at the College of Arms in London. The office of Chester Herald dates from the 14th century, and it is reputed that the holder was herald to Edward, Prince of Wales, also known as the Black ...
. * ' in 1580 by
William Bullokar William Bullokar was a 16th-century printer who devised a 40-letter phonetic alphabet for the English language. Its characters were in the black-letter or "gothic" writing style commonly used at the time. Taking as his model a Latin grammar by ...
. * ' in 1621 by Dr. Alexander Gill, headmaster of St Paul's School in London. * ' in 1634 by Charles Butler, vicar of
Wootton St Lawrence Wootton St Lawrence is a small village in the civil parish of Wootton St Lawrence with Ramsdell, in Hampshire, England, west of Basingstoke. The name is derived from the Old English ''wudu tun'' meaning woodland settlement or farm. History The ...
. These proposals generally did not attract serious consideration because they were too radical or were based on an insufficient understanding of the phonology of English. However, more conservative proposals were more successful.
James Howell James Howell (c. 1594 – 1666) was a 17th-century Anglo-Welsh historian and writer who is in many ways a representative figure of his age. The son of a Welsh clergyman, he was for much of his life in the shadow of his elder brother Thomas How ...
in his ''Grammar'' of 1662 recommended minor changes to spelling, such as changing ' to ''logic'', ' to ''war'', ' to ''sin'', ' to ''town'' and ' to ''true''. Many of these spellings are now in general use. From the 16th century AD onward, English writers who were scholars of
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and
Latin literature Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literature ...
tried to link English words to their Graeco-Latin counterparts. They did this by adding silent letters to make the real or imagined links more obvious. Thus ' became ''debt'' (to link it to Latin ), ' became ''doubt'' (to link it to Latin ), ' became ''scissors'' and ' became ''scythe'' (as they were wrongly thought to come from Latin ), ' became ''island'' (as it was wrongly thought to come from Latin ), and so forth.
William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
satirized the disparity between English spelling and pronunciation. In his play ''
Love's Labour's Lost ''Love's Labour's Lost'' is one of William Shakespeare's early comedies, believed to have been written in the mid-1590s for a performance at the Inns of Court before Elizabeth I of England, Queen Elizabeth I. It follows the King of Navarre and ...
'', the character Holofernes is "a
pedant A pedant is a person who is excessively concerned with formalism, accuracy and precision, or one who makes an ostentatious and arrogant show of learning. Etymology The English language word ''pedant'' comes from the French ''pédant'' (used in ...
" who insists that pronunciation should change to match spelling, rather than simply changing spelling to match pronunciation. For example, Holofernes insists that everyone should pronounce the unhistorical ''B'' in words like ''doubt'' and ''debt''.


19th century

The second period started in the 19th century and appears to coincide with the development of phonetics as a science. In 1806,
Noah Webster Noah ''Nukh''; am, ኖህ, ''Noḥ''; ar, نُوح '; grc, Νῶε ''Nôe'' () is the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5– ...
published his first dictionary, ''A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language''. It included an essay on the oddities of modern orthography and his proposals for reform. Many of the spellings he used, such as ''color'' and ''center'', would become hallmarks of
American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
. In 1807, Webster began compiling an expanded dictionary. It was published in 1828 as ''
An American Dictionary of the English Language ''Webster's Dictionary'' is any of the English language dictionaries edited in the early 19th century by American lexicographer Noah Webster (1758–1843), as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted the Webster's ...
''. Although it drew some protest, the reformed spellings were gradually adopted throughout the United States. In 1837,
Isaac Pitman Sir Isaac Pitman (4 January 1813 – 22 January 1897) was a teacher of the :English language who developed the most widely used system of shorthand, known now as Pitman shorthand. He first proposed this in ''Stenographic Soundhand'' in 183 ...
published his system of phonetic shorthand, while in 1848
Alexander John Ellis Alexander John Ellis, (14 June 1814 – 28 October 1890), was an English mathematician, philologist and early phonetician who also influenced the field of musicology. He changed his name from his father's name, Sharpe, to his mother's maiden na ...
published ''A Plea for Phonetic Spelling''. These were proposals for a new phonetic alphabet. Although unsuccessful, they drew widespread interest. By the 1870s, the philological societies of Great Britain and America chose to consider the matter. After the "International Convention for the Amendment of English Orthography" that was held in
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
in August 1876, societies were founded such as the English Spelling Reform Association and American Spelling Reform Association. That year, the American Philological Society adopted a list of eleven reformed spellings for immediate use. These were ''are→ar, give→giv, have→hav, live→liv, though→tho, through→thru, guard→gard, catalogue→catalog, (in)definite→(in)definit, wished→wisht''. One major American newspaper that began using reformed spellings was the ''
Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'', whose editor and owner, Joseph Medill, sat on the Council of the Spelling Reform Association. In 1883, the American Philological Society and American Philological Association worked together to produce 24 spelling reform rules, which were published that year. In 1898, the American
National Education Association The National Education Association (NEA) is the largest labor union in the United States. It represents public school teachers and other support personnel, faculty and staffers at colleges and universities, retired educators, and college stude ...
adopted its own list of 12 words to be used in all writings: ''tho, altho, thoro, thorofare, thru, thruout, catalog, decalog, demagog, pedagog, prolog, program''.


20th century onward

The
Simplified Spelling Board The Simplified Spelling Board was an American organization created in 1906 to reform the spelling of the English language, making it simpler and easier to learn, and eliminating many of what were considered to be its inconsistencies. The board oper ...
was founded in the United States in 1906. The SSB's original 30 members consisted of authors, professors and dictionary editors.
Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...
, a founding member, supported the SSB with yearly
bequests A bequest is property given by will. Historically, the term ''bequest'' was used for personal property given by will and ''deviser'' for real property. Today, the two words are used interchangeably. The word ''bequeath'' is a verb form for the ...
of more than US$300,000. In April 1906, it published a list of 300 words, which included 157 spellings that were already in common use in American English. In August 1906, the SSB word list was adopted by
Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
, who ordered the Government Printing Office to start using them immediately. However, in December 1906, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution and the old spellings were reintroduced. Nevertheless, some of the spellings survived and are commonly used in American English today, such as ''anaemia/anæmia''→''anemia'' and ''mould''→''mold''. Others such as ''mixed''→''mixt'' and ''scythe''→''sithe'' did not survive. In 1920, the SSB published its '' Handbook of Simplified Spelling'', which set forth over 25 spelling reform rules. The handbook noted that every reformed spelling now in general use was originally the overt act of a lone writer, who was followed at first by a small minority. Thus, it encouraged people to "point the way" and "set the example" by using the reformed spellings whenever they could. However, with its main source of funds cut off, the SSB disbanded later that year. In Britain, spelling reform was promoted from 1908 by the Simplified Spelling Society and attracted a number of prominent supporters. One of these was
George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
(author of ''
Pygmalion Pygmalion or Pigmalion may refer to: Mythology * Pygmalion (mythology), a sculptor who fell in love with his statue Stage * ''Pigmalion'' (opera), a 1745 opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau * ''Pygmalion'' (Rousseau), a 1762 melodrama by Jean-Jacques ...
'') and much of his considerable
will Will may refer to: Common meanings * Will and testament, instructions for the disposition of one's property after death * Will (philosophy), or willpower * Will (sociology) * Will, volition (psychology) * Will, a modal verb - see Shall and will ...
was left to the cause. Among members of the society, the conditions of his will gave rise to major disagreements, which hindered the development of a single new system. Between 1934 and 1975, the ''
Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'', then
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
's biggest newspaper, used a number of reformed spellings. Over a two-month spell in 1934, it introduced 80 respelled words, including ''tho, thru, thoro, agast, burocrat, frate, harth, herse, iland, rime, staf'' and ''telegraf''. A March 1934 editorial reported that two-thirds of readers preferred the reformed spellings. Another claimed that "prejudice and competition" was preventing dictionary makers from listing such spellings. Over the next 40 years, however, the newspaper gradually phased out the respelled words. Until the 1950s,
Funk & Wagnalls Funk & Wagnalls was an American publisher known for its reference works, including ''A Standard Dictionary of the English Language'' (1st ed. 1893–5), and the ''Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedia'' (25 volumes, 1st ed. 1912).Funk & Wagnalls N ...
dictionaries listed many reformed spellings, including the SSB's 300, alongside the conventional spellings. In 1949, a Labour MP, Dr
Mont Follick Montefiore Follick (31 December 1887 – 10 December 1958) was a British Labour Party politician, a campaigner for spelling reform, polyglot and advocate of decimal currency. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Loughborough from 1945 to 1955, ...
, introduced a
private member's bill A private member's bill is a bill (proposed law) introduced into a legislature by a legislator who is not acting on behalf of the executive branch. The designation "private member's bill" is used in most Westminster system jurisdictions, in whi ...
in the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
, which failed at the second reading. In 1953, he again had the opportunity, and this time it passed the second reading by 65 votes to 53. Because of anticipated opposition from the
House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...
, the bill was withdrawn after assurances from the Minister of Education that research would be undertaken into improving spelling education. In 1961, this led to
James Pitman Sir Isaac James Pitman (known as James), KBE (14 August 1901 – 1 September 1985) was a distinguished publisher, senior civil servant, prominent educationalist, and leading politician, whose lifetime pursuit was the study of etymology, o ...
's
Initial Teaching Alphabet The Initial Teaching Alphabet (I.T.A. or i.t.a.) is a variant of the Latin alphabet developed by Sir James Pitman (the grandson of Sir Isaac Pitman, inventor of a system of shorthand) in the early 1960s. It was not intended to be a strictly phonet ...
, introduced into many British schools in an attempt to improve child literacy. Although it succeeded in its own terms, the advantages were lost when children transferred to conventional spelling. After several decades, the experiment was discontinued. In his 1969 book ''Spelling Reform: A New Approach'', the Australian linguist Harry Lindgren proposed a step-by-step reform. The first, '' Spelling Reform step 1'' (SR1), called for the short sound (as in ''bet'') to always be spelled with <e> (for example ''friend→frend, head→hed''). This reform had some popularity in Australia. In 2013,
University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...
Professor of English Simon Horobin proposed that variety in spelling be acceptable. For example, he believes that it does not matter whether words such as "accommodate" and "tomorrow" are spelled with double letters. This proposal does not fit within the definition of spelling reform used by, for example, ''
Random House Dictionary ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary'' is a large American dictionary, first published in 1966 as ''The Random House Dictionary of the English Language: The Unabridged Edition''. Edited by Editor-in-chief Jess Stein, it contained 315, ...
''.


Arguments for reform

It is argued that spelling reform would make it easier to learn to read (decode), to spell, and to pronounce, making it more useful for international communication, reducing educational budgets (reducing literacy teachers, remediation costs, and literacy programs) and/or enabling teachers and learners to spend more time on more important subjects or expanding subjects. Another argument is the sheer amount of resources that are wasted using the current spelling. For example,
Cut Spelling Cut Spelling is a system of English-language spelling reform which reduces redundant letters and makes substitutions to improve correspondence with the spoken word. It was designed by Christopher Upward and was for a time being popularized by th ...
can reduce spelling up to 15%. According to that figure, for every 100 letters being used on a daily basis there are 15 letters being used unnecessarily. That amounts to 15 pages for every 100 pages of a book, or about 1 in 7 trees. This applies to all aspects of daily living including shopping receipts, office documents, newspapers and magazines, and internet traffic. This is taxing on time, energy, money, and other resources. Advocates note that spelling reforms have taken place already, just slowly and often not in an organized way. There are many words that were once spelled un-phonetically but have since been reformed. For example, ''music'' was spelled '' musick'' until the 1880s, and ''fantasy'' was spelled '' phantasy'' until the 1920s. For a time, almost all words with the ''-or'' ending (such as ''error'') were once spelled ''-our'' ('' errour''), and almost all words with the ''-er'' ending (such as ''member'') were once spelled ''-re'' ('' membre''). In
American spelling Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable variations being British and American ...
, most of them now use ''-or'' and ''-er'', but in British spelling, only some have been reformed. In the last 250 years, since
Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709  – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...
prescribed how words ought to be spelled, pronunciations of hundreds of thousands of words (as extrapolated from Masha Bell's research on 7000 common words) have gradually changed, and the
alphabetic principle According to the alphabetic principle, letters and combinations of letters are the symbols used to represent the speech sounds of a language based on systematic and predictable relationships between written letters, symbols, and spoken words. The ...
in English has gradually been corrupted. Advocates argue that if we wish to keep English spelling regular, then spelling needs to be amended to account for the changes. Reduced spelling is currently practiced on informal internet platforms and is common in text messaging. The way vowel letters are used in English spelling vastly contradicts their usual meanings. For example, ⟨o⟩, expected to represent may stand for while ⟨u⟩, expected to represent may represent This makes English spelling even less intuitive for foreign learners than it is for native speakers, which is of importance for an international auxiliary language.


Ambiguity

Unlike many other languages, English spelling has never been systematically updated and thus today only partly holds to the alphabetic principle. As an outcome, English spelling is a system of weak rules with many exceptions and ambiguities. Most
phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
s in English can be spelled in more than one way. E.g. the words fr and pr contain the same sound in different spellings. Likewise, many
grapheme In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other names of emic units. The study of graphemes is called ''graphemics' ...
s in English have multiple pronunciations and decodings, such as ''
ough Ough may refer to: * Ough (orthography) ''Ough'' is a four-letter sequence, a tetragraph, used in English orthography and notorious for its unpredictable pronunciation.Adam Brown, ''Understanding and Teaching English Spelling: A Strategic Guide' ...
'' in words like ''thr'', ''th'', ''tht'', ''thor'', ''t'', ''tr'', and ''pl''. There are 13 ways of spelling the
schwa In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
(the most common of all phonemes in English), 12 ways to spell and 11 ways to spell . These kinds of incoherences can be found throughout the English lexicon and they even vary between dialects. Masha Bell has analyzed 7000 common words and found that about 1/2 cause spelling and pronunciation difficulties and about 1/3 cause decoding difficulties. Such ambiguity is particularly problematic in the case of heteronyms (
homograph A homograph (from the el, ὁμός, ''homós'', "same" and γράφω, ''gráphō'', "write") is a word that shares the same written form as another word but has a different meaning. However, some dictionaries insist that the words must also ...
s with different pronunciations that vary with meaning), such as ''bow'', ''desert'', ''live'', ''read'', ''tear'', ''wind'', and ''wound''. In reading such words one must consider the context in which they are used, and this increases the difficulty of learning to read and pronounce English. A closer relationship between phonemes and spellings would eliminate many exceptions and ambiguities, making the language easier and faster to master.


Undoing the changes

Some proposed simplified spellings already exist as standard or variant spellings in old literature. As noted earlier, in the 16th century, some scholars of
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and
Latin literature Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literature ...
tried to make English words look more like their Graeco-Latin counterparts, at times even erroneously. They did this by adding silent letters, so ''det'' became ''debt'', ''dout'' became ''doubt'', ''sithe'' became ''scythe'', ''iland'' became ''island'', ''ake'' became ''ache'', and so on. Some spelling reformers propose undoing these changes. Other examples of older spellings that are more phonetic include ''frend'' for ''friend'' (as on Shakespeare's grave), '' agenst'' for ''against'', '' yeeld'' for ''yield'', ''bild'' for ''build'', ''
cort Cort is the surname of several people: * Cornelis Cort (1536–1578), Dutch engraver * Henry Cort (1740–1800), English ironmaster * Frans de Cort (1834–1878), Flemish writer * Hendrik Frans de Cort (1742-1810), Flemish landscape painter * John ...
'' for ''court'', '' sted'' for ''stead'', '' delite'' for ''delight'', '' entise'' for ''entice'', ''
gost GOST (russian: ГОСТ) refers to a set of International standard, international Technical standard, technical Standardization, standards maintained by the ''Euro-Asian Council for Standardization, Metrology and Certification (EASC)'', a region ...
'' for ''ghost'', ''
harth Harth is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Alfred 23 Harth, German artist * C. Ernst Harth (born 1970), Canadian actor * Sidney Harth (1925–2011), American classical violinist and conductor * Yoram Harth (born 1958), Israeli de ...
'' for ''hearth'', ''
rime Rime may refer to: *Rime ice, ice that forms when water droplets in fog freeze to the outer surfaces of objects, such as trees Rime is also an alternative spelling of "rhyme" as a noun: *Syllable rime, term used in the study of phonology in ling ...
'' for ''rhyme'', '' sum'' for ''some'', '' tung'' for ''tongue'', and many others. It was also once common to use ''-t'' for the ending ''-ed'' where it is pronounced as such (for example ''
dropt The Drot or Dropt () is a river in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France. It is a right tributary to the Garonne. It is long. Geography The source of the Dropt is located near Capdrot in the Dordogne. The drainage basin covers the area between the riv ...
'' for ''dropped''). Some of the English language's most celebrated writers and poets have used these spellings and others proposed by today's spelling reformers.
Edmund Spenser Edmund Spenser (; 1552/1553 – 13 January 1599) was an English poet best known for ''The Faerie Queene'', an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of ...
, for example, used spellings such as ''rize, wize'' and ''advize'' in his famous poem ''
The Faerie Queene ''The Faerie Queene'' is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. Books IIII were first published in 1590, then republished in 1596 together with books IVVI. ''The Faerie Queene'' is notable for its form: at over 36,000 lines and over 4,000 sta ...
'', published in the 1590s.


Redundant letters

The
English alphabet The alphabet for Modern English is a Latin-script alphabet consisting of 26 letters, each having an upper- and lower-case form. The word ''alphabet'' is a compound of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, '' alpha'' and '' beta''. ...
has several letters whose characteristic sounds are already represented elsewhere in the alphabet. These include X, which can be realised as "ks", "gz", or z; soft G (), which can be realised as J; hard C (), which can be realised as K; soft C (), which can be realised as S; and Q ("qu", or ), which can be realised as "kw" (or simply K in some cases). However, these spellings are usually retained to reflect their often-Latin roots.


Arguments against reform

Spelling reform faces many arguments against the development and implementation of a reformed orthography for English. Public acceptance to spelling reform has been consistently low, at least since the early 19th century, when spelling was codified by the influential English
dictionaries A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, p ...
of
Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709  – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...
(1755) and
Noah Webster Noah ''Nukh''; am, ኖህ, ''Noḥ''; ar, نُوح '; grc, Νῶε ''Nôe'' () is the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5– ...
(1806). The irregular spelling of very common words, such as ''are, have, done, of, would'' makes it difficult to fix them without introducing a noticeable change to the appearance of English text. English is the only one of the top ten major languages with no associated worldwide
regulatory body A regulatory agency (regulatory body, regulator) or independent agency (independent regulatory agency) is a government authority that is responsible for exercising autonomous dominion over some area of human activity in a licensing and regulatin ...
with the power to promulgate spelling changes. English is a
West Germanic language The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into ...
that has borrowed many words from non-Germanic languages, and the spelling of a word often reflects its origin. This sometimes gives a clue as to the meaning of the word. Even if their pronunciation has strayed from the original pronunciation, the spelling is a record of the phoneme. The same is true for words of Germanic origin whose current spelling still resembles their cognates in other Germanic languages. Examples include ''light'', German ; ''knight'', German ; ''ocean'', French ; ''occasion'', French . Critics argue that re-spelling such words could hide those links, although not all spelling reforms necessarily require significantly re-spelling them. Another criticism is that a reform may favor one dialect or pronunciation over others, creating a
standard language A standard language (also standard variety, standard dialect, and standard) is a language variety that has undergone substantial codification of grammar and usage, although occasionally the term refers to the entirety of a language that includes ...
. Some words have more than one acceptable pronunciation, regardless of dialect (e.g. ''economic'', ''either''). Some distinctions in regional accents are still marked in spelling. Examples include the distinguishing of ''fern'', ''fir'' and ''fur'' that is maintained in Irish and Scottish English or the distinction between ''toe'' and ''tow'' that is maintained in a few regional dialects in England and Wales. However, dialectal accents exist even in languages whose spelling is called phonemic, such as Spanish. Some letters have allophonic variation, such as how the letter ''a'' in ''bath'' currently stands for both and and speakers pronounce it as per their dialect. Some words are distinguished only by non-phonetic spelling (as in ''knight'' and ''night'').


Spelling reform proposals

Most
spelling reform A spelling reform is a deliberate, often authoritatively sanctioned or mandated change to spelling rules. Proposals for such reform are fairly common, and over the years, many languages have undergone such reforms. Recent high-profile examples ar ...
s attempt to improve phonemic representation, but some attempt genuine
phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
spelling, usually by changing the basic English alphabet or making a new one. All spelling reforms aim for greater regularity in spelling.


Using the basic English alphabet

*
Cut Spelling Cut Spelling is a system of English-language spelling reform which reduces redundant letters and makes substitutions to improve correspondence with the spoken word. It was designed by Christopher Upward and was for a time being popularized by th ...
*'' Handbook of Simplified Spelling'' *
SoundSpel SoundSpel is a regular and mostly phonemic English-language spelling reform proposal. It uses a 26-letter alphabet that is fully compatible with QWERTY keyboards. Though SoundSpel was originally based on American English, it can represent dial ...
* Spelling Reform 1 (SR1) * Traditional Spelling Revised * Wijk's Regularized Inglish


Extending or replacing the basic English alphabet

These proposals seek to eliminate the extensive use of digraphs (such as "ch", "gh", "kn-", "-ng", "ph", "qu", "sh", voiced and voiceless "th", and "wh-") by introducing new letters and/or
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
s. Each letter would then represent a single sound. In a digraph, the two letters represent not their individual sounds but instead an entirely different and discrete sound, which can lengthen words and lead to mishaps in pronunciation. Notable proposals include: * Benjamin Franklin's phonetic alphabet *
Deseret alphabet The Deseret alphabet (; Deseret: or ) is a phonemic English-language spelling reform developed between 1847 and 1854 by the board of regents of the University of Deseret under the leadership of Brigham Young, the second president of the Ch ...
* Interspel *
Shavian alphabet The Shavian alphabet (; also known as the Shaw alphabet) is an alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonemic orthography for the English language to replace the difficulties of conventional spelling using the Latin alphabet. It wa ...
(revised version:
Quikscript QUIKSCRIPT is a simulation language derived from SIMSCRIPT, based on 20-GATE.a programming language for the 1960s Bendix G-20 computer References * "Quikscript - A Simscript-like Language for the G-20", F.M. Tonge et al., Communications of t ...
) * SaypU (Spell As You Pronounce Universally) * Simpel-Fonetik Method of Writing *
Unifon Unifon is a Latin script, Latin-based phonemic orthography for American English designed in the mid-1950s by Dr. John R. Malone, a Chicago economist and newspaper equipment consultant. It was developed into a teaching aid to help children acqui ...
Some speakers of non-Latin script languages occasionally write English phonetically in their respective writing systems, which may be perceived as an ad hoc spelling reform by some.


Historical and contemporary advocates of reform

A number of respected and influential people have been active supporters of spelling reform. * Orm/Orrmin, 12th century
Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berbers, Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia (Roman pr ...
canon monk and eponymous author of the ''
Ormulum The ''Ormulum'' or ''Orrmulum'' is a twelfth-century work of biblical exegesis, written by an Augustinian canon named Orm (or Ormin) and consisting of just under 19,000 lines of early Middle English verse. Because of the unique phonemic orthog ...
'', in which he stated that, since he dislikes that people are mispronouncing English, he will spell words exactly as they are pronounced, and describes a system whereby vowel length and value are indicated unambiguously. He distinguished short vowels from long by doubling the following consonants, or, where this is not feasible, by marking the short vowels with a superimposed
breve A breve (, less often , neuter form of the Latin "short, brief") is the diacritic mark ˘, shaped like the bottom half of a circle. As used in Ancient Greek, it is also called , . It resembles the caron (the wedge or in Czech, in Slo ...
accent. * Thomas Smith, a Secretary of State to
Queen Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". El ...
, who published his proposal ''De recta et emendata linguæ angliæ scriptione'' in 1568. *
William Bullokar William Bullokar was a 16th-century printer who devised a 40-letter phonetic alphabet for the English language. Its characters were in the black-letter or "gothic" writing style commonly used at the time. Taking as his model a Latin grammar by ...
was a schoolmaster who published his book ''English Grammar'' in 1586, an early book on that topic. He published his proposal ''Booke at large for the Amendment of English Orthographie'' in 1580. *
John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem '' Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political ...
, poet. *
John Wilkins John Wilkins, (14 February 1614 – 19 November 1672) was an Anglican clergyman, natural philosopher, and author, and was one of the founders of the Royal Society. He was Bishop of Chester from 1668 until his death. Wilkins is one of the fe ...
, founder member and first secretary of the
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
, early proponent of
decimalisation Decimalisation or decimalization (see spelling differences) is the conversion of a system of currency or of weights and measures to units related by powers of 10. Most countries have decimalised their currencies, converting them from non-decimal ...
and a brother-in-law to
Oliver Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three Ki ...
. * Charles Butler, British naturalist and author of the first natural history of bees: ''Đe Feminin' Monarķi'', 1634. He proposed that 'men should write altogeđer according to đe sound now generally received,' and espoused a system in which the h in digraphs was replaced with bars. *
James Howell James Howell (c. 1594 – 1666) was a 17th-century Anglo-Welsh historian and writer who is in many ways a representative figure of his age. The son of a Welsh clergyman, he was for much of his life in the shadow of his elder brother Thomas How ...
was a documented, successful (if modest) spelling reformer, recommending, in his ''Grammar'' of 1662, minor spelling changes, such as 'logique' to 'logic', 'warre' to 'war', 'sinne' to 'sin', 'toune' to 'town' and 'tru' to 'true', many of which are now in general use. *
Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
, American innovator and revolutionary, added letters to the Roman alphabet for his own personal solution to the problem of English spelling. *
Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709  – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...
, poet, wit, essayist, biographer, critic and eccentric, broadly credited with the standardisation of English spelling into its pre-current form in hi
Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
*
Noah Webster Noah ''Nukh''; am, ኖህ, ''Noḥ''; ar, نُوح '; grc, Νῶε ''Nôe'' () is the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5– ...
, author of the first important American dictionary, believed that Americans should adopt simpler spellings where available and recommended it in his 1806 ''A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language''. *
Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
*
Isaac Pitman Sir Isaac Pitman (4 January 1813 – 22 January 1897) was a teacher of the :English language who developed the most widely used system of shorthand, known now as Pitman shorthand. He first proposed this in ''Stenographic Soundhand'' in 183 ...
developed the most widely used system of
shorthand Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek ''ste ...
, known now as
Pitman Shorthand Pitman shorthand is a system of shorthand for the English language developed by Englishman Sir Isaac Pitman (1813–1897), who first presented it in 1837. Like most systems of shorthand, it is a phonetic system; the symbols do not represent lette ...
, first proposed in ''Stenographic Soundhand'' (1837). * U.S. President
Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
commissioned a committee, the Columbia Spelling Board, to research and recommend simpler spellings and tried to require the U.S. government to adopt them; however, his approach, to assume popular support by
executive order In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of th ...
, rather than to garner it, was a likely factor in the limited change of the time. *
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...
was a vice-president of the English Spelling Reform Association, precursor to the (Simplified) Spelling Society. *
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
FRS, originator of the
Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charle ...
, was also a vice-president of the English Spelling Reform Association, his involvement in the subject continued by his physicist grandson of the same name. *
John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, 4th Baronet, (30 April 183428 May 1913), known as Sir John Lubbock, 4th Baronet from 1865 until 1900, was an English banker, Liberal politician, philanthropist, scientist and polymath. Lubbock worked in his fam ...
, close friend, neighbour and colleague of Charles Darwin, also involved in the Spelling Reform Association. * H.G. Wells, science fiction writer and one-time Vice President of the London-based Simplified Spelling Society. *
Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...
, celebrated philanthropist, donated to spelling reform societies on the US and Britain, and funded the
Simplified Spelling Board The Simplified Spelling Board was an American organization created in 1906 to reform the spelling of the English language, making it simpler and easier to learn, and eliminating many of what were considered to be its inconsistencies. The board oper ...
. * Daniel Jones, phonetician. professor of
phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
at
University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...
. *
George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
,
playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...
, willed part of his estate to fund the creation of a new alphabet now called the
Shavian alphabet The Shavian alphabet (; also known as the Shaw alphabet) is an alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonemic orthography for the English language to replace the difficulties of conventional spelling using the Latin alphabet. It wa ...
. *
Ronald Kingsley Read Ronald Kingsley Read (19 February 1887February 1975) was one of four contestants chosen to share the prize money for the design of the Shavian alphabet, a completely new alphabet intended for writing English. He was later appointed sole responsib ...
, creator of the
Shavian alphabet The Shavian alphabet (; also known as the Shaw alphabet) is an alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonemic orthography for the English language to replace the difficulties of conventional spelling using the Latin alphabet. It wa ...
,
Quikscript QUIKSCRIPT is a simulation language derived from SIMSCRIPT, based on 20-GATE.a programming language for the 1960s Bendix G-20 computer References * "Quikscript - A Simscript-like Language for the G-20", F.M. Tonge et al., Communications of t ...
and Readspel. *
Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
, a founding member of the Simplified Spelling Board. *
Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell Lieutenant-general (United Kingdom), Lieutenant-General Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, ( ; (Commonly pronounced by others as ) 22 February 1857 – 8 January 1941) was a British Army officer, writer, foun ...
*
Upton Sinclair Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in seve ...
*
Melvil Dewey Melville Louis Kossuth "Melvil" Dewey (December 10, 1851 – December 26, 1931) was an influential American librarian and educator, inventor of the Dewey Decimal system of library classification, a founder of the Lake Placid Club, and a chief lib ...
, inventor of the Dewey Decimal System, wrote published works in simplified spellings and even simplified his own name from ''Melville'' to ''Melvil''. * Israel Gollancz *
James Pitman Sir Isaac James Pitman (known as James), KBE (14 August 1901 – 1 September 1985) was a distinguished publisher, senior civil servant, prominent educationalist, and leading politician, whose lifetime pursuit was the study of etymology, o ...
, a publisher and
Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
, grandson of
Isaac Pitman Sir Isaac Pitman (4 January 1813 – 22 January 1897) was a teacher of the :English language who developed the most widely used system of shorthand, known now as Pitman shorthand. He first proposed this in ''Stenographic Soundhand'' in 183 ...
, invented the
Initial Teaching Alphabet The Initial Teaching Alphabet (I.T.A. or i.t.a.) is a variant of the Latin alphabet developed by Sir James Pitman (the grandson of Sir Isaac Pitman, inventor of a system of shorthand) in the early 1960s. It was not intended to be a strictly phonet ...
. *
Charles Galton Darwin Sir Charles Galton Darwin (19 December 1887 – 31 December 1962) was an English physicist who served as director of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) during the Second World War. He was a son of the mathematician George Howard Darwin an ...
, KBE, MC, FRS, grandson of
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
and director of Britain's National Physical Laboratory ( NPL) in
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, was also a wartime vice-president of the Simplified Spelling Society. *
Mont Follick Montefiore Follick (31 December 1887 – 10 December 1958) was a British Labour Party politician, a campaigner for spelling reform, polyglot and advocate of decimal currency. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Loughborough from 1945 to 1955, ...
,
Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...
Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
,
linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
(multi-lingual) and author who preceded
Pitman Pitman may refer to: * A coal miner, particularly in Northern England * Pitman (surname) * Pitman, New Jersey, United States * Pitman, Pennsylvania, United States * Pitman, Saskatchewan, Canada * Pitman Shorthand, a system of shorthand * Pitman ar ...
in drawing the English spelling reform issue to the attention of
Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
. Favoured replacing w and y with u and i. *
Isaac Asimov yi, יצחק אזימאװ , birth_date = , birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR , spouse = , relatives = , children = 2 , death_date = , death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S. , nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (192 ...
*
HRH Royal Highness is a style used to address or refer to some members of royal families, usually princes or princesses. Monarchs and their consorts are usually styled ''Majesty''. When used as a direct form of address, spoken or written, it takes ...
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, later Philip Mountbatten; 10 June 1921 – 9 April 2021) was the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. As such, he served as the consort of the British monarch from El ...
, one-time Patron of the Simplified Spelling Society. Stated that spelling reform should start outside of the UK, and that the lack of progress originates in the discord amongst reformers. However, his abandonment of the cause was coincident with literacy being no longer an issue for his own children, and his less than lukewarm involvement may have ended as a result of the Society's rejection of attempts to 'pull strings' behind the scenes. *
Robert R. McCormick Robert Rutherford "Colonel" McCormick (July 30, 1880 – April 1, 1955) was an American lawyer, businessman and Anti-war movement, anti-war activist. A member of the McCormick family of Chicago, McCormick became a lawyer, Republican Party (Unite ...
(1880–1955), publisher of the ''
Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'', employed reformed spelling in his newspaper. The ''Tribune'' used simplified versions of some words, such as "altho" for "although". *
Edward Rondthaler Dr. Edward Rondthaler (June 9, 1905 – August 19, 2009) was a typographer as well as a simplified spelling champion and chairman of the American Literacy Council. He was critical to the development of SoundSpel. He was born in Bethlehem, P ...
(1905–2009), commercial actor, chairman of the American Literacy Council and vice-president of the Spelling Society. *
John C. Wells John Christopher Wells (born 11 March 1939) is a British phonetician and Esperantist. Wells is a professor emeritus at University College London, where until his retirement in 2006 he held the departmental chair in phonetics. Career Wells ea ...
, London-based phonetician,
Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communi ...
teacher and former professor of
phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
at
University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...
: past President of The English Spelling Society. *
Valerie Yule Valerie Constance Yule (2 January 1929 – 28 January 2021) was an Australian researcher in literacy and imagination, and a clinical child psychologist, academic, school psychologist and teacher, working in disadvantaged schools, Melbourne an ...
, a fellow of the
Galton Institute The Adelphi Genetics Forum is a non-profit learned society based in the United Kingdom. Its aims are "to promote the public understanding of human heredity and to facilitate informed debate about the ethical issues raised by advances in reproductive ...
, Vice-president of The English Spelling Society and founder of the Australian Centre for Social Innovations. *
Doug Everingham Douglas Nixon Everingham (25 June 1923 – 24 August 2017) was an Australian politician who served as Minister for Health in the Whitlam government from 1972 to 1975. He represented the Labor Party in the House of Representatives from 1967 to ...
, doctor, former Australian Labor politician, health minister in the
Whitlam Edward Gough Whitlam (11 July 191621 October 2014) was the 21st prime minister of Australia, serving from 1972 to 1975. The longest-serving federal leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1967 to 1977, he was notable for being the he ...
government, and author of ''Chemical Shorthand for Organic Formulae'' (1943), and a proponent of the proposed
SR1 The Sr1 is a class of electric locomotives built for VR of Finland. These 25 kV locomotives were built in the Soviet Union at the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Factory between 1973 and 1985. Two additional locomotives of this class were b ...
, which he used in ministerial correspondence. *Allan Kiisk, professor of engineering, linguist (multi-lingual), author of ''Simple Phonetic English Spelling'' (2013) and ''Simpel-Fonetik Dictionary for International Version of Writing in English'' (2012). *
Anatoly Liberman Anatoly Liberman (russian: Анато́лий Си́монович Либерма́н; born 10 March 1937) is a linguist, medievalist, etymologist, poet, translator of poetry (mainly from and into Russian), and literary critic. Liberman is a pro ...
, professor in the Department of
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
,
Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...
n and
Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...
at the
University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...
advocates spelling reforms at his weekly column on word origins at the Oxford University Press blog. Current President of the English Spelling Society.


See also

* "
The Chaos ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
", a poem demonstrating the irregularity of English spelling *
Folk etymology Folk etymology (also known as popular etymology, analogical reformation, reanalysis, morphological reanalysis or etymological reinterpretation) is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more famili ...
*
Ghoti ''Ghoti'' is a creative respelling of the word ''fish'', used to illustrate irregularities in English spelling and pronunciation. Explanation The word is intended to be pronounced in the same way (), using these sounds: * ''gh'', pronounced as ...
*
History of English grammars The history of English grammars begins late in the sixteenth century with the ''Pamphlet for Grammar'' by William Bullokar. In the early works, the structure and rules of English grammar were based on those of Latin. A more modern approach, incorpor ...
*
History of the English language English is a West Germanic language that originated from Ingvaeonic languages brought to Britain in the mid-5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon migrants from what is now northwest Germany, southern Denmark and the Netherlands. The Anglo-Sa ...
*
List of reforms of the English language Over the years, many people have called for language reform of the English language. Various types of reforms have been proposed. Spelling reforms {{main, English-language spelling reform Spelling reforms are attempts to regularise English spellin ...
*
Orthographies and dyslexia Dyslexia is a complex, lifelong disorder involving difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters and other symbols. Dyslexia does not affect general intelligence, but is often co-diagnosed with ADHD. There are at least three sub-ty ...
*
Phonemic orthography A phonemic orthography is an orthography (system for writing a language) in which the graphemes (written symbols) correspond to the phonemes (significant spoken sounds) of the language. Natural languages rarely have perfectly phonemic orthographi ...
* ''
The Phonetic Journal ''The Phonetic Journal'' was the official journal of The Phonetic Society based at the Kingston Buildings in Bath, Somerset, England and is the first ever journal about phonetics. It was published subtitled as ''Published Weekly, Devoted to the ...
'' *
Phonological history of English Like many other languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of English share a largely similar (but not identical) phonological system. Among ...


References


Further reading

* Bell, Masha (2004), ''Understanding English Spelling'', Cambridge: Pegasus * Bell, Masha (2012)
SPELLING IT OUT: the problems and costs of English spelling
ebook * Bell, Masha (2017),
English Spelling Explained
', Cambridge, Pegasus
Children of the Code
An extensive, in depth study of the illiteracy problem. * Crystal, David. ''Spell It Out: The Curious, Enthralling and Extraordinary Story of English Spelling'' (St. Martin's Press, 2013) * Hitchings, Henry. ''The language wars: a history of proper English'' (Macmillan, 2011) * Kiisk, Allan (2013) ''Simple Phonetic English Spelling - Introduction to Simpel-Fonetik, the Single-Sound-per-Letter Writing Method'', in printed, audio and e-book versions, Tate Publishing, Mustang, Oklahoma. * Kiisk, Allan (2012) ''Simpel-Fonetik Dictionary - For International Version of Writing in English'', Tate Publishing, Mustang, Oklahoma. * Lynch, Jack. ''The Lexicographer's Dilemma: The Evolution of 'Proper' English, from Shakespeare to South Park'' (Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2009) * Marshall, David F. "The Reforming of English Spelling". ''Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity: The Success-Failure Continuum in Language and Ethnic Identity Efforts'' (2011) 2:113+ * Wolman, David
''Righting the Mother Tongue: From Olde English to Email, the Tangled Story of English Spelling''
HarperCollins, 2009. . * Zimmerman, Jonathan. "Simplified Spelling and the Cult of Efficiency in the 'Progressiv' Era." ''Journal of the Gilded Age & Progressive Era'' (2010) 9#3 pp. 365-394


External links



* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20181010180117/http://home.earthlink.net/~disembodiedbrain/eng.htm The OR-E system Orthographic Reform of the English Language
''EnglishSpellingProblems'' blog by Masha Bell

"Spelling reform: It didn't go so well in Germany"
article in the Economist's ''Johnson'' Blog about spelling reform
The Nooalf Revolution
Provides an English-based international spelling system. The orthography has many similarities to Unifon.

has an extensive list of current spelling reform proposals. {{DEFAULTSORT:English Spelling Reform History of the English language