This matter of English spelling reform interests me primarily because I
have had to indicate the pronunciations of a great many words in my
verse translation of the _Aeneid_, particularly proper nouns such as
'Anchises' (Angkiezeze). I have also written my own rhyming dictionary,
which requires some system of classifying rhyme sounds phonetically. I
have used successively three systems, the second involving the use of
new letters, but have finally settled on a system that uses digraphs,
so that the Latin alphabet can be retained. Before describing my latest
system in detail, I would like to comment briefly on some of the main
difficulties which confront any spelling reformer.
One problem with all the systems of English phonetic spelling that I
have seen, is that very many words are respelled not phonetically, but
in a new but largely arbitrary manner that the reformer supposes will
be easier to learn. For example, instead of 'sints' for 'sense', many
reformers will come up with the arbitrary 'sens' Or a word like
'passionate' will be respelled 'pashunet' instead of 'pashunut'. Or
again, as did the Chicago Tribune reform, long vowels are not
indicated, so we have not 'thrue' for 'through', but 'thru'. But
whenever a system is not highly phonetic, it requires to be learned in
much the same rote manner that the traditional or historic spelling
requires. And this system is so well entrenched, or rather
internaiized, that very few will care to replace it with anything that
requires any great additional effort to learn. Hence I conclude that if
the current orthography is ever abandoned, it will be replaced with a
highly phonetic system, and the reform will be radical and wholesale,
not confined to a few hundred 'test' or 'show' words. Nor will the
reformers use persuasion, but law and force.
Another problem concerns whether one should use the Latin/Italian
values for the vowels and diphthongs, or the English ones. My first two
systems used the Latin values, but I have come to believe that the
average user is much less intimidated by the English values, provided
they are consistently and phonetically used. For example, I prefer
'late' to 'leit' for 'late', and 'bete' not 'biit' for 'beat' or
'beet'.
I also think it is a very good idea to preserve one (but only one)
non-phonetic spelling, namely the habit of transferring the 'e' used as
vowel marker to the end of monosyllables and final syllables. Thus we
have 'rote' for 'wrote', and not 'roet'. This makes the new phonetic
spelling much more comfortable and familiar. I would however go further
than the traditional practice, and transfer the 'e' to the end of the
word, even when more than one consonant intervenes. Hence I spell
'gates' as 'gatse' and 'breaks' as 'brakse'. In non-final syllables
however, the 'e' is not displaced, as this would create confusion:
'breaker' = braekur and not brakeur & 'greatest' = graetist or
graedist, not grateist.
Finally, I prefer to keep all but a few of the native values for the
diphthongs, so that 'cow' is respelled 'kou' and not 'kao'.
I now proceed to describe my phonetic spelling system in more detail.
The traditional five short and five long vowels are left largely
undisturbed:
Short A as in 'cat'
Short E as in 'let'
Short I as in 'pit'
But short O as in 'roar' (ror) or 'ought' (ot), never as in 'hot'
(haht), where I replace 'o' with 'ah'. Some spelling reformers choose
to retain the traditional value of short O as in 'hot', while using
'au' for the vowel of 'ought', but this seems to me to be ill-advised,
as then we have 'arms' = 'ormz' instead of 'ahrmz', which would be very
confusing to the average reader.
Short U as in 'rut' or 'abet' (ubet) or 'the' (dhu)
The long vowels (long O and long U are not really 'long', but this is
the traditional term for them) are indicated by adding the vowel marker
'e', never in any other manner:
Long A as in 'late' = late & 'gay' = gae
Long E as in 'seat' = sete & 'sea' = see
Long I as in 'night' = nite & 'shy' = ****e
Long O as in 'old' = olde & 'go' = goe
Long U as in 'use' = yuse. (Note that long U no longer includes the 'y'
sound, which must be spelled out, so that such words as 'union' become
'yuenyun' not uenyun) & 'due' = dyue
There are certain vowels which do not fall into the traditional system
of five short and five long vowels. I have already mentioned the vowel
AH as in 'father' or 'hot'. Also, OO is used to represent the vowel of
'cook' Another vowel, which is very rarely identified as a living
English phoneme, but which does in fact occur, is EO, corresponding to
the vowel of French 'peu'. This vowel occurs in such words as
'perilous', which is _not_ pronounced 'perulus' but 'peruleos', with
the third vowel much closer and more rounded than short U, so that it
resembles the French vowel in 'peu'. The diphthong OI requires little
comment, except that I always spell it 'oi' and never 'oy', so that
'boy' = boi. I use OU as the one spelling for the sound heard in such
words as 'brown', 'flour', etc.
Occasionally the diaeresis is necessary to separate vowels, when there
would otherwise be confusion. Also, one can indicate whether a word is
pronounced as a monosyllable or a dissyllable by changing its spelling,
e.g. 'lyre' monosyllabic = lire, but dissyllabic = lieur (lie-ur).
Normally 'lyre' is a monosyllabic, but 'liar' a dissyllable.
Certain vowels are regularly transformed before R. For example long E
becomes Short I, e.g. 'cheer' = cir not cere. Also, long A is
transformed into short A and then into short E, so that 'rare' =
rer and not rar or rare. Also, long U becomes OO, e.g. 'sure' =
shoor, and again, long O becomes short O, e.g. 'shore' = shor.
Turning to the consonants, they have their most usual values, except
that:
'ch' is replaced by C ('cheer' = cir), there being no need for the
digraph, since 'c' is otherwise replaced by K or S ('creek' = kreke &
'cereal' = siriul)
Sonant 'th' is replaced by DH as in 'father' = fadhur
In such words as 'finger' the hard g is inserted: = finggur
Soft g is respelled J, 'general' = jinurul
The consonant heard in such words as pleasure, azure, usual and beige
is spelled with X = plexur, axur, yuexuwul & bex, while of course the
letter x never equals ks, so that 'ax' = aks
There are a few additional refinements that I have also added to the
system. I use Q to indicate the extremely short, obscure vowel heard in
such words as 'latin' or 'brighten', where many speakers pronounce
'latn' instead of 'latun' and 'brietn' instead of 'brietun'. But as
these words are always dissyllables and never monosyllables, it seems
to me that this very short, 'swallowed' vowel ought to be indicated, so
I spell 'latqn' and 'brietqn'.
Finally, I favor WH over 'hw' to spell such words as 'why' = whie,
although in my own dialect, WH is replaced by W.
This brings me to the oft-discussed matter of which dialect to adopt as
normative in phonetic spelling. As far as poetry is concerned, each
poet will use his own dialect, or perhaps (as did Homer) many dialects,
according as whatever pronunciation he considers most euphonious in a
given line. I for example employ IU to represent the sound of the
French vowel 'u' when I wish to add an archaic flavor to the
pronunciation of an English word such as 'usaunce'. Moreover, it so
happens that this vowel is used by my own native dialect in such words
as 'you', which is pronounced not 'yue' in South Carolina, but 'yiu'
(with almost the same vowel as in French 'tu'). Again, my native
dialect has many nasalized vowels not heard elsewhere, which I indicate
by adding NH to the vowel.
But for prose it seems to me that there is really no contest as to
which dialect should be normative: the so-called 'Received'
Pronunciation of the English upper classes has far more prestige than
any other, Its only real rival is the English heard on American
television and radio, but this has very little prestige, even among
Americans.
Finally, I would like to mention that in the actual, spoken English of
native speakers very many consonants are affected by the consonants
with which they are in contact, and many vowels weaken to neutral
forms, according to definite laws. For example, most native speakers do
_not_ say for "He said he would take it out and look at it, and that
then he could tell if it were in good condition."
Hee sed hee wood take it out and look at it, and dhat dhen hee kood tel
if it wur in good kundishun.
But rather:
Hee sed hiud take id out n look id it, an nat thin hee kood tel if it
wur ing good kundishun.
My own opinion is that a reformed English spelling should prefer the
latter, actual pronunciation, and not some theoretical 'frozen' or
'ideal' spelling for each word.
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