AGREEMENT NEEDED.

Wanganui Chronicle, Issue 12824, 17 October 1911, Page 8

AGREEMENT NEEDED.

j 13lit-now a more important stop is to iI o tjikon. The five Americans who are coming to the conference are members of the Simplified; Spelling Board of America. "Wo find, in this country, at any rate/V Mrs. Will:jym Archer, the secretary of the Simplified Spelling Society, told an ''Express';'.' representative 'yesterday, ' that mere sporadic alterations— changing' this word of that' on tic,'cle'ftoito-system—*lo not carry us far. i Therefore ■we want to - agree on what: I seems the most practical alphabetic ! system of representing the sounds of ! tho language consistently, so that any ono .who knows the sound of a word 'hay; bo able to spell it.-by the use of tho system. * .'.'What we propose is to appropriata a particular letter, or combination of .letters,.to ono sound and to that sound' alone, instead of having one sound roll rosented by half a dozen symbols; ''For instance, the letter 'a' now 'represents sev.m sounds, as will be seoti by pronouncing these words: — rjtpk away or sofa, ash care. ' ate want. "It would be easy to keep the letter 'ft''I' for "the sound of 'a' in 'ash/ arid to use 'ai' for the 'a' in 'ale.:' as we use; 'ai' in 'fail.' Then for 'ask' we mighthave 'aask.', Each vowel or combination of vowels would then have only one V:ouud, and it would be-infinitely easier bo>-h for children and for foreigners to master such a definite system, instead, of having to puzzle out" which of the aoven sounds should be.given to ;*a,'