SIMPLIFIED SPELLING

Northern Advocate, 26 March 1926, Page 3

SIMPLIFIED SPELLING

A GREAT PROBLEM. Professor Gilbert* Murray presided over a meeting of the Simplified Spelling Society in London. A message was received from Mr T. M. Healy, Governor-General of the Irish Free State, stating that after half a century’s study of the question of spelling reform he had that cause at heart i © as warmly as ever. The chairman said a petition was about to be sent to the Pl?me Minister asking the Government to appoint a committee to inquire into the great! problem with which the Society was! concerned. They had drawn up an ex- j perimental scheme of spelling to see ■ how far, with the existing alphabet,! they could have a standard phonetic j pronouneiation. They did not claim | that their scheme was perfect, but I they had called attention to a subject of great importance as a scientific j problem and a problem of practical j politics. In regard to the English j language,, he thought we had got to a state of confusion that was rather dangerous. Foreigners often asiaid to him, “We can read English, buf we do not attempt to speak it, because that is like learning another laguage.” We were getting to the condition in which to learn English properly, so as to understand the signs written and the sounds spoken, required quite an inordinate degree of labour. We ought not to allow the path of the English language to be cumbered by such an enormous and unnecessary difficulty. The adoption of phonetic spelling right off would, he thought, lead to difflcul-. ties. Masses of words had come down in their Latin form, and if there ■was to be some satisfactory practical solution of the problem he was not quite sure that it would not be, worth seeking along the road of leaving the Latin spellings pretty well as they were. Whore there was a recognised European form of spelling a word it could be left, and energy devoted to correcting what he might call the native spellings.

Sir G. B. Hunter said that to compel our children, to read in the present obsolete way and to learn our arbitrary inconsistent dictionary spelling was a cmel wrong to the child. It was an obstacle to the attainment of .real education. He suggested that those who were desirous of simplifying our spelling might begin immediately some simplification in their ordinary correspondence. He had done so for years past and he intended to continue to do so.

Mr. A. P. Graves, formerly a Government Inspector of Schools, said he believed from his practical experience that it would be a great boon if some system of phonetic spelling could .be introduced to teach children to read within a reasonable time.