SHOULD ENGLISH SPELLING BE REFORMED?

Otago Witness, Issue 3672, 29 July 1924, Page 60

SHOULD ENGLISH SPELLING BE REFORMED?

Just lately a contributed article on this question appeared in tlic Witness. I have not got it to refer to, and I did not read it carefully, but I know it advocated spelling reform. And now I have received a clever letter on the subject from our Cosy Corner contributor, Templeton, who is a strong advocate of spelling reform. She tells me that for some time s?ie belonged to an English society formed to promote spelling reform, and she writes her letter in a modified kind of reformed spelling, in which as little change is made as is necessary to make the spelling fit the sound of words. She regards the question as one of great practical importance, holding that if words were consistently spelt according to their sounds much time, labour, and vexation of spirit now spent in learning how to spell would he saved, and children and young people would thus have more time and energy to spend in acquiring some knowledge of various branches of science and other subjects useful for practical purposes or for enlarging the mind. She thinks the strength of the arguments for spelling reform are so overwhelming, and the growth of opinion in favour of it so rapid, that conservative objectors who abuse and ridicule proposed reform seem to her like Mrs Partington with her mop defying the Atlantic Ocean. I fancy Mrs Partington will brandish her mop for a good while

at any rate, even if she is forced to retreat in the end. Now if spelling is at present such a burdensome and wasteful educational subject; if by introducing a simple and logical spelling system we could save such a large amount of school time for subjects of essential utility, certainly the reform should be made. Hut that so much time would be saved has always appeared to me doubtful, while many objections to interference with established spelling have appeared to me important. Thus I have so far been out of sympathy with the idea of spelling reform, and a number of years back I wrote one or two articles against it, one, I think, for an educational journal. Put I have an open mind on the subject, and have never been one to get angry at the idea of meddling with established spelling or to ridicule samples of reformed spelling as ugly and ridiculous, which, as Templeton says, many opponents do. The look of printed words is a very minor matter, and the new spelling appears grotesque merely because it is new, just as many new fashions do till the eye gets used to them. How grotesque the fashionable high-pointed heels to ladies’ shoes would look if we had never seen them before! The reasons why I have been out of sympathy with spelling reform are that the assumed practical advantages appeared to me to be exaggerated, and the disadvantages very considerable. The greatest difficulty to me seemed that of getting a system generally accepted and adhered to. If several systems were in use at once there would be confusion worse confounded. Already there is a little inconvenience in the fact that many words in American books are spelt in a different way from the standard English ones, and thus young people reading American stories or magazines may unconsciously copy the American form. I have seen specimens of a great many varieties of reformed spelling, some appearing in text books by Skeats and other authorities on language, and certainly some of this at first sight looked like any language but English. But as I said before, the look is a trifling matter; the eye would soon grow accustomed to the new forms. The objection—-which Templeton mentions —that English classics like the works of Shakespeare, Milton, and the great Victorian wx-iters would become antiquated, is very feebly based. New editions of these authors would, of course, be printed in the modernised spelling, while students could with very slight trouble accustom themselves to read the old versions. As to interfering with the works of great authors, we do not read Shakespeare in Elizabethan spelling. I freely admit that there is much force in the arguments for a radical reform of our spelling. Certainly English spelling is illogical and arbitrary; full of inconsistencies and anomalies, and it must be most puzzling to foreigners. But all living languages are full of irregularities and inconsistencies. English grammar has plenty of these, though it is much simpler than the grammars of most languages, indeed it is about the simplest of languages from a grammatical point of view, which may have something to do with its very wide usage by non-English people. This is some set-off to the irregular spelling. If you want a logical, thoroughly systematic language you must seek an artificial one, like Esperanto. Languages that have grown are illogical and full of irregularities. French spelling seems to be as opposed to reason as English, since so many letters, even what should be syllables, are not sounded at all. German spelling is much more, consistent than English, though the words, as Templeton says, have an uncouth look, owing to the number of consonants, some of which seem superfluous, “sch,” for instance, doing the duty of the English “sh.”. In Italian and Spanish (with which languages I have only nodding acquaintance), the spelling seems to conform very fairly to the sound of the words. And I have often thought that it would be important to know whether Italian and Spanish children learn to read their language and spell it correctly much more quickly than British children learn to read and spell theirs. If they do, that tells decidedly in favour of our spelling reformer, though possibly the people of these countries may be naturally better memorisers than English people commonly are. I think English people on the whole are poor linguists, though the country has produced some remarkable ones, and thus they may be less apt in dealing with words generally than the natives of several other countries. I should like to have the opinion of experienced teachers collectively on the question of the proportion of a child’s school time consumed in spelling. Certainly I do not remember spending much time over spelling myself. I would not boast of my spelling to-day; I find myself occasionally puzzled as to whether a consonant should be doubled or not; still spelling never was burdensome to me, and Templeton says the same of herself. But there are other people, and some very clever ones, to whom spelling is a bugbear in their schooldays, and who never become good spellers. For truly idionetic spelling it would be necessary to introduce some new letters or signs, for we have more sounds than we have letters for. Five vowels, singly or in combination, have to stand for a very large number of vowel sounds. Some of the invented systems of reformed spelling give new letters, and also have dots or accents affixed to letters, all which tends to produce a strange effect to the unaccustomed eye. Templeton's system, which relies on new combinations of the old letters we have, seems very satisfactory, but is not perfect from a phonetic point of view. As she says, a system must be authorised by educational leaders before it can be successfully introduced ;

and certainly there must be much investigation and exchange of opinion before this authoritative introduction of reformed spelling can be realised. The subject is an interesting one, and I have not done justice to Templeton's arguments, so 1 may later have something more to say on spelling reform. ‘'Old Identity" sends me a letter expressing appreciation of Heartsease's selection of Bracken's-poetry at last Cosy Corner meeting. Bracken deserves to be known and honoured by the rising generation of New Zealanders. Like Burns (the last two verses of whose poem, “The Cottar's Saturday Night,” “Old Identity” quotes), Bracken was a warm patriot, and his writings tend to good citizenship and high character. Esther.