English Spelling Reform

Linguists can only speculate about the exact sounds that the first alphabetic script represented (now dated back to approx. 1800 B.C.). In any case, languages constantly change phonetically in time and space. Italian, French, Portuguese, Spanish, etc. obviously are sister languages, all descended from Latin, and the Spanish of Buenos Aires can easily be recognized as somewhat different from that of Madrid. This explains to a large extent, why our alphabet and our spelling need to be reformed.

The Latin alphabet never was a good fit for English from the very beginning, inasmuch as it had insufficient letters. The fit became worse as pronunciation changed over the centuries and invaders—above all the Normans—introduced elements of their tongues. The fit was somewhat better for some dialects than others, but overall it was thoroughly bad, so much so that in approximately 1180 A.D. the British monk Orm made the first known attempt in history to do something about it.

His well-intended effort failed, as did many others across the centuries. The best known exponents of reform in England include Isaac Pitman, James Pitman and George Bernard Shaw, and in the U.S., Benjamin Franklin, Noah Webster, Theodore Roosevelt and Andrew Carnegie. Shaw bequeathed much of his estate to the cause of spelling reform. Andrew Carnegie contributed $600,000 (perhaps $6,000,000 in today's currency).

Many explanations have been put forward for these failures, from Orm's day down to the present, including one which now has no validity. In recent times, advances in linguistic science have led to the creation of alphabets around the world for hundreds of thousands of people and hundreds of languages for which no writing system had ever existed. One of the greatest in this field, if not the all-time great, was my professor Kenneth L. Pike at the University of Michigan. Through his system* and his efforts, innumerable so-called "primitive" or "third-world" people now have alphabets far, far superior to our own. So, from Orm until recent times, the reforms were far from ideal. Today, despite the problem posed by the expectations of speakers of different regional and social dialects of our language, proposed reforms can be virtually "perfect"—altogether so when compared with the incredibly archaic non-system that we have inherited.
*Kenneth L. Pike. Phonemics: A Technique for Reducing Languages to Writing. Ann Arbor. The University of Michigan Press, 1956 (fifth printing).

Space-age technology has taken care of another problem: What to do with the millions of things now in print. Computers, high-speed scanners and offset presses can quickly convert the old to the nu, so anything worth republishing can be reprinted in no time at all. However, during a transition period, everyone will be biliterate, like those who also know English shorthand, though NuSpel is much, much easier to learn. As a terrific bonus, NuSpel provides the best possible way for little children and older illiterates to learn OldSpel, following techniques tested out in the valuable i.t.a. (initial teaching alphabet) experiments carried out in both the United Kingdom and the United States.

Other problems relate to inertia and resistance to change. Kemal Ataturk of Turkey and Kim Il Sung of North Korea handled this problem very handily when imposing new, totally different writing systems on their people, but arbitrary dictatorial approaches, thankfully, cannot be employed in democracies. This reality leads to an understanding of the real reason previous campaigns for reform failed. Even when championed by prestigious figures like those mentioned above and with the aid of abundant funding, efforts to introduce something new from "above" rather than "below" are not the way to go. The way to go is... with you.

To truly succeed in this or anything, a movement has to proceed from the people, from the so-called grass roots up. So contributions to the NuSpel campaign, large and small, from young and old, toward erasing the disgrace of seeing our country fall behind third-world countries in terms of literacy will not be employed to lobby government, starting figuratively at the top, but to connect up with the bold, adventurous, pioneering spirits who will be the first in history, against all odds, inertia and opposition, to bring about such an unparalled, incredible, formidable, awesome, invaluable change.

A word on the role of youth in this. Elsewhere I have referred to a little ditty that's an itty bitty witty but omits the nitty gritty:

Appeal to their reason,

Appeal to their pride,

Appeal to their honor,

Then appeal to their hide.

This is supposed to be a guide to adults for incentivating desired behavior in the young. Actually, all that adults have to do, drawing on their vast knowledge and experience, is to provide the young with a small glimpse of something worthy of their enthusiasm and creativity and stand back. But the importance of the grass roots must always be emphasized. Governmental initiatives, guidance and leadership are indispensable, but if broad public support is lacking, not much will happen.

A grassroots campaign means involvement, doing things yourself (alone and with others) and sharing the results—not just signing petitions and leaving it at that, though we'll sign plenty of them once we've got lots of tangible accomplishments to show to the people upstairs.

Of all possibilities in this world loaded with possibilities, the very best for purposes of alphabet reform is NuSpel clubs and interest groups. The NuSpel Start-Up Kit (listed along with other literacy-materials) will give young and old a glimpse of the possibilities and help to get them started. NuSpel clubs and groups can be organized anywhere, especially at schools and colleges, but anywhere at all where participants can be brought together.

Recommend these first readers to your local school and to friends and relatives or use them yourself to get your children on the fast track to total English literacy. Click on "first readers" for information.

Another, very significant way to promote literacy is to use or suggest spelling and alphabet reform as a topic for speech classes and debate clubs at schools and universities. Many articles, pro and con, can be found on the internet, together with different approaches to the problem, from Cut Spelng to George Bernard Shaw's alphabet to NuSpel. Just type in "spelling reform" for a search, or try http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/spell/index.html, for example. See also What's in the Way? and similar discussions on this site.

Please e-mail or snail-mail reports of your activities, your suggestions, comments, and other items for publication (stories, poems, recipes, jokes, quotations, song lyrics, cartoons, alphadoodles, whatever—preferably in NuSpel, or let us do the conversion and/or scanning) to Space-Age Literacy Unlimited our NuSpel electronic newsletter. Get your own club or group going strong and then help others to get started. I can already hear you saying, before long, "What's this about grass roots? What we've got going here is oak roots!"