In the same way, in English, it would have been superfluous, in an alphabet merely directed to satisfy practical needs, to adopt a special sign for the front nasal n in sing; because n, followed by and combined with g, always has the same sound. Similarly, n, in such combinations as the Fr. vigne, Ital. ogni, has a consistent and regular pronunciation, and therefore there is no need for any special representation of it.
There are indeed languages, like Sanscrit, in which the principle of phonetic spelling is more or less carefully carried out. Generally, however, we find that the same sign of any particular alphabet has to serve for more than one sound, and it almost invariably happens that we augment the confusion by employing different signs for one and the same sound. The chief reason for these defects is because most nations, instead of creating symbols to represent the sounds in their own language, have been content to adopt an alphabet ready to hand, made to suit the requirements of the language of another nation. Thus the alphabet used by most civilised nations was that which the Phenicians elaborated from the Egyptian hieroglyphics; and the Russians adopted with modifications the Greek adaptation of this. Another reason for the inconsistency is that, as pronunciation changes, it is obvious that the denotation of symbols ought to change as well. These same causes may also produce an unnecessary superfluity of symbols. In English, for instance, the alphabet suffers alike from superfluity and defect. Several signs serve to denote the same sound, as c, k, ch; c, s; oo, ou; ou, ow; a, ai; e, i, ee, ea, ie, ei; i, y; cks, x; oa, aw; and many others might be cited. Again, there are many cases in which the same symbols denote different sounds, such as th in thin and then; a in hat and fatal; i in pin and pine.[208]
It is not the place here to point out in detail the advantages of a well-spelt language over a less well-spelt one.[209] Practically, however, the consideration cannot be disregarded that, if English orthography represented English pronunciation as closely as Italian does Italian, at least half the time and expense of teaching to read and to spell would be saved. This is assumed by Dr. Gladstone[210] to be twelve hundred hours in a lifetime, and as more than half a million of money per annum for England and Wales alone. A few instances, taken mainly from Pitman’s work, may serve to show how all-pervading the irregularity is.
The same symbol serves to denote different vowel sounds (1) even in words etymologically connected; as, sane, sanity; nation, national; navy, navigate; metre, metrical; final, finish; floral, florid; student, study; punitive, punish: (2) in words etymologically unconnected, as in fare, have, save; were, mere; give, dive; notice, entice; active, arrive; doctrine, divine; gone, bone; dove, move, rove, hover. Again, cf., change, flange; paste, caste; bind, wind; most, cost; rather, bather; there, here; fasting, wasting.
By collecting examples in this way, Mr. Pitman has arrived at the conclusion that, in English, we endeavour to express fourteen distinct sounds by using five signs in twenty-three different ways, without any real means of discriminating when one sound and when another is intended, or what sign should be used to denote a particular sound. But besides these separate vowel signs, digraphs and trigraphs to the number of twenty-two are used to express the same fourteen sounds which the five vowel signs have already attempted to represent; though they, in addition, attempt to represent two more diphthongal sounds, making sixteen distinct sounds in all. For instance, pail, said, plaid; pay, says; heat, sweat, great, heart; receive, vein, height; key, prey, eye; sour, pour, would; town, sown.[211]
Of the consonants, we may remark, in the first place, that many are silent, as in debt, limb, indict, condemn: in some cases, silent consonants have been interpolated to suggest a mistaken derivation, as in sovereign, foreign, island; in others, again, they have been capriciously retained to mark the derivation of a word (as in receipt), and yet omitted in the case of other words derived from the same source. Then, for instances of the inconsistent use of consonants, we may take the following table from Pitman; (a few examples have been added):—
ch.—church, chaise, ache; yacht, drachm. ck.—pick (k or c superfluous). gh.—ghost, cough, hough; dough, night, inveigh. ng.—singer, linger, infringer. ph.—physic, nephew; phthisical. rh.—rhetoric, myrrh, catarrh. sc.—science, conscience, discern, score. sch.—schism, schedule, scheme. th.—thistle, this, thyme. wh.—whet, whole.
If, in addition to these obvious defects in alphabets, we bear in mind the fact that the accentuation commonly remains for the most part undenoted, we must admit that our alphabets present us with a very imperfect picture of spoken language. For an attempt to realise a scientifically correct alphabet, we must refer to Sweet’s ‘Handbook of Phonetics,’ and Melville Bell’s ‘Visible Speech,’ ‘Sounds and their Relations,’ A. J. Ellis, etc., not to mention the works in other languages, such as those by Techmer, Vietor, Trautmann, Sievers, etc.
We have to bear in mind that writing is to living language nothing more than what a rough sketch is to a finished picture. The sketch is, commonly speaking, sufficient to enable one familiar with the figures which are meant to be represented, to recognise them. But should several painters attempt to reproduce a finished sketch from such rough outline, they would produce a set of pictures differing very much in details. For instance, each painter, if he did not recognise certain objects in the sketch, would be tempted to substitute in their place others with which he might be familiar. Just so, those who seek to reproduce the sounds of a language from written symbols, will be tempted to substitute similar sounds with which they are familiar for the sounds of the sketch, as, for our purpose, we may call the alphabet. Even in the case of a foreign language possessing an alphabet in some respects identical with our own, like the French, it is considered necessary to prefix to the alphabet a description of the sound intended to be conveyed by the symbol; and even this cannot obviate the necessity of hearing the sound, especially when the alphabet is not based upon scientific principles. It is equally true that the same remarks are applicable to the case of a dialect belonging to the same group of languages as our own.
In any linguistic area where the same language is spoken, there exist different dialects, i.e. variations from the standard language possessing a quantity of divergencies from the sounds of the standard language. The common alphabet has to stand as the representative of all these dialects alike, and the same symbol has to present, for instance, the u sound as uttered by a west countryman and as uttered by a Scotchman. R, again, is pronounced by a Londoner quite differently from the way in which it is pronounced by a Scotchman. F is pronounced like v in Devonshire and Cornwall; and the h is in many words notoriously written but not pronounced in the greater part of England proper. Besides such obvious differences, which might be multiplied indefinitely,[212] we have to remember that the quantity, the pitch, and the accent remain undenoted by the standard alphabet in the different dialects; and we shall easily see that a large quantity of dialectic differences is taken no account of in writing. The obvious result of this want of adequate representation of the sounds of the separate dialects must be that the speakers in the separate dialects must each consider that the sound with which he is himself familiar is the one intended to be represented by the symbol which he sees.