(Unattributed, but if the unknown author sees this he's welcome to respond)

The inconsistency of English spelling is hard for native speakers, but it can drive those who learn English as a second language to tears or to drink. Both native and nonnative speakers ask why English cannot be phonetic (fonetic). Spanish and Italian are quite phonetic [sic]*, and I am told that Korean is so phonetic that with a few hours of instruction you can read Korean aloud to Koreans and be understood. You won't understand it yourself but your listeners will. But written Chinese has no relationship at all to spoken Chinese. So obviously not everyone believes words should be written like they are spoken.

---

*Spoken language is "phonetic"? In other words, it consists of sounds? What a remarkable insight! And what a stupefying solecism! "Phonetic" is a linguistic term denoting the analysis and transcription of speech sounds. "Phonemic," an ancillary term, refers to phonetically similar sounds heard as identical by native speakers. The phonemes of a given language contrast with each other sufficiently so that a change in basic sound effects a change in meaning: English pin vs. bin, for example. The p and the b are similar in that both are bilabial—the lips come together. P, unlike b, is pronounced without vibration of the vocal cords and may be aspirated. This contrast in sound is associated with a change of meaning. In pin vs. spin, though the first p is aspirated and the second is not, both are taken to be the same, so there is no need to differentiate them in writing. These two variants of phoneme /p/, referred to as allophones, are phonetically written [p^h] and [p].

Check this out by pronouncing pin and spin into the flame of a candle or against the back of your hand. In some languages, /p/ and /p^h/ are separate phonemes. and consequently require distinct symbols.

---

If we made English phonetic, would we make it phonetic for the British aristocracy or for London cockneys—for Australians, Mississippians, Texas, Bostonians, Brooklynites, or Utahns? If we made it phonetic for one of those groups, it would be unphonetic for the rest. And if each wrote phonetically, spelling would be a worse mess than it is now.

The English spelling mess resulted from how the language grew. It started as a language spoken by Germanic tribes who invaded England more than 2,000 years ago and it was closer to German than to present-day English. Subsequent invaders, the Romans, Norse, and French, added their words to the language. Further, since the English were a seafaring and trading nation, they met all peoples of the world and borrowed those peoples' words for all the new things they found. As a result, nearly every major or minor language in the world has contributed words to our language.

Words that entered the language sometimes entered with the same spelling they had in the original language—IF the original language used our alphabet, and many didn't. If the language used a different alphabet, or if it had no written form, whoever first used the word in English tried to make it sound as much as possible like the writer heard it and spelled it accordingly. Often the writer did not hear it very well—or at least not like we hear it.

As a result, the spelling of the word may contain the history of the word, and give the flavor of its original language. It would be a shame to phoneticize all such borrowings and strip the original Italian flavor from pizza and spaghetti, the original Hindi color from khaki, and the wilderness from the Tupi jaguar and piranha.

A good many nouns we borrowed from Arabic contain the article "al" which in Arabic preceded the nouns. So we get alcohol, alchemy, and algebra. Spanish has a letter "ll" (considered one letter) [sic] that is pronounced as y. So we get tortilla, Lladro, and llama. (Remember Ogden Nash's lines, The one-l lama, he's a priest / The two-ll llama, he's a beast.) Spanish also has the n with a squiggly line called a tilde over it. It is pronounced like ny. As a result, when Spanish words containing that letter are written in English, they may be written with the tilde or as ny, as in canyon.

French has a special c that has a tail on it and marks that go over vowels in some words. These and the double dots that go over the o in some German words, may or may not have those marks in English text—depending on whether the typesetter has the type or inclination to reproduce them. Hence facade, resume, and ingenue sometimes have marks and sometimes do not. Book typesetters usually include such marks. Newspaper typesetters usually omit them.

A Rebuttal

Coming to the defense of rationality, let's throw the author's heading right back at him: Can a supposedly rational person (Seriously, with a straight face!) come to our spelling's defense? Rationally, every sound (technically, every phoneme) of a decent spelling system should be represented by one letter only (technically, one grapheme only). With our existing spelling, the 40 or so phonemes of English (depending on which dialect and the nature of the analysis employed) can be spelled in 561 different ways. The vowel of "seat," for example, can be spelled in a very confusing, unpredictable, treacherous number of ways (scheme, be, see, eat, key, lazy, people, chief, weird, amoeba, kilo, etc.). In his first sentence, the author as much as acknowledges that his assessment is totally at variance with that of speakers of other languages world-wide, where our hopelessly antiquated spelling is scorned, ridiculed, and rated as the worst on earth.

The distinguished American linguist Archibald A. Hill has stated, "A speaker of a language should be able to pronounce correctly any sequence of letters that he may encounter, even if previously unknown, and secondarily, be able to spell any phonemic sequence he may hear, again even if previously unknown." (Slightly paraphrased.) Our current spelling departs disastrously from this standard. How else explain (other factors relatively equal) why there are an estimated 40 million functional illiterates in our great nation while, in terms of literacy, "third-world" countries like Bolivia and Cuba are leaving us in the dust? Shouldn't this mortify us to the very core?

Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein (with dialectical differences greater than found in Brooklynese vs. Bostonese) have recently joined together to reform the spelling of German, a process expected to be irreversible by the year 2002. Even without reform, their system is far superior to our English non-system, but they want to do every single thing in their power—right down to perfecting every last "jot and tittle"—to make the acquisition of reading and writing skills as efficient, rapid, and painless as possible for their precious little ones (and as a consequence, with much more time available for other subjects, significantly speed up and broaden their education in general, from kindergarten through high school). Are we so much less caring, concerned and capable, that we can't do the same?

Just a few days ago a 12-year-old girl from Jamaica won the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee by spelling "chiaroscurist" correctly—a word that any first grader could handle with spelling reform. She is highly deserving of commendation, of course; nevertheless, if we had a decent way to spell, the countless hours she spent on spelling could have been devoted instead to math, science, literature, art, history, geography, foreign languages, economics, technical and fine writing, word processing, computer science, home economics, home and auto repair, physical education, or folk and ballroom dancing, not to mention numerous other valuable studies and pursuits. Yes, newspapers should be commended for reporting her success, but couldn't they also just once print something on spelling reform and write a neutral or even a positive word on the pro side of it?

Setting up a ridiculously unreal straw man, the same author asks, "If we made English phonetic [sic], would we make it phonetic for the British aristocracy or for London cockneys—for Australians, Mississippians, Texans, Bostonians, Brooklynites, or Utahns?" Doesn't he know as a professor of English with a Ph.D. that in civilized nations world-wide it is a common practice to adopt national linguistic standards for purposes of uniformity and unity? For dictionary entries in the United States, General American English (GA) is employed. In Great Britain, the entries are in RP (Received Pronunciation), as their preferred standard is called.

Incredible as it may seem, whether for GA or for RP, the pronunciation of every single word in English dictionaries is indicated by means of keys and guides. What could be more irrational? Why not spell each word rationally to begin with? Of course we wouldn't want to make words like "cough," "rough," "bough" "though" and "through" phonetic in order to ease the learning task for little children! It might take the "flavor" out of them! In languages with spelling systems far superior to our own archaic disreputable non-system, words are spelled as most commonly pronounced and pronounced as spelled, with significant regional or social variants also given in the same manner. As a result, a fabulous flavor can be associated with the spelling of every single word, variously describable as terrific, cool, the best, the way it ought to be, sensible, logical, sane, regular, easy, simple, scientific, up-to-date and rational.

How can a defense of a hopelessly irregular, embarrassingly obsolete spelling be considered rational when the defender for starters—in his own words—considers the flavor of a word spelled "jaguar" more important than coming to the rescue of native speakers and foreigners "driven to tears or to drink by the inconsistency of English spelling"? Which flavors does he prefer? Jagyuwar, rezoom, peran-hah? To cite only a couple of the innumerable gratifying "flavors" (which he must really savor) created when little children, foreigners or unwary adult speakers of English try to decipher how words new to them should be pronounced.

We like to think of ourselves as a very advanced, progressive nation. So how (as generally is the case) can our elite molders of public opinion be so unbelievably unknowledgeable, unenlightened and backward when it comes to spelling?

Robert R. McCormick, one of the better-known proponents of English spelling reform, attempted to popularize certain simplified spellings by consistently employing them in the Chicago Tribune, of which he was publisher and editor. He favored "frate" over "freight," for example, and a rather limited number of other simplifications such as "nite" for "night" and "lite" for "light". Despite the superficiality of his attempt, he nonetheless deserves commendation for keeping the idea of reform before the public. Perhaps if he had had a large chain of newspapers, his effort might have been more successful.

Today we have in the Internet the equivalent of an enormous chain of newspapers and much more. As expressed in You Are the Solution, unless there is a groundswell of support for reform at the grassroots level, not much can be expected to happen. So the question of reform must be brought to the attention of the public as widely as possible and a forum established for input, feedback and discussion.

Above all, great numbers of individuals must not only become familiar with a reformed system but fluent in its use. The proof is in the pudding. When numerous persons, young and old, discover through actual use the simplicity, consistency and total regularity of the new spelling, they may be expected to become avid advocates for its general adoption.

A parallel approach, of equal importance, must focus on children. Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein are currently going forward with a reform of German spelling expected to become irreversible by the year 2002. Inasmuch as its use is obligatory in the schools, publishers have already realized that they must begin to phase it into their publications. It has been reported that the Frankfurter Allgemeine, perhaps Germany's most important newspaper, is already planning to make the switch.

The basic goal of this newsletter is to provide a great variety of NuSpel texts for individuals of all ages and interests (jokes, riddles, stories, quotations, common sayings,recipes, comments, suggestions, cartoons...). When numerous persons, young and old, discover through actual use the simplicity, consistency and total regularity of the new spelling, they may be expected to become avid advocates for its general adoption.

You are invited to e-mail or snail-mail items falling in the categories listed or in any
others of special interest. At this point, of course, e-mail basically handles only OldSpel, so the best solution is to download a NuSpel font, print out and snail mail or fax your contribution. (975 E. Main Canyon Rd., Wallsburg, UT 84082; Fax# 435-654-4429).

See The NuSpel Keyboard (under Do It Yourself) for information on fonts. Please don't let this complication deter you. If it's simpler for you, just e-mail your texts to us in OldSpel and we'll do the conversion. And if you don't have access to a scanner, send your graphics too—illustrations, posters, cartoons, whatever—and we'll scan them for you.

NuSpel Home Page