English spelling and spelling reform

by Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury

The lack of a sufficient number of signs to indicate the sounds is therefore the first difficulty to be encountered. But this is a defect which English shares with several tongues which have adopted the Roman alphabet. There is another characteristic which belongs to our language exclusively. This is the progressive movement which has gone on in the case of some of the vowel-sounds. In the historic development of English pronunciation several of these have lost their original values. This has caused them not merely to deviate from the sounds they once had in our own speech, but has also brought them out of harmony with those of the cultivated tongues of modern Europe. In none of these have the original values experienced any such disturbance. Such a condition of things is so peculiar to our language, it complicates the whole orthographic situation so thoroughly, that it demands first consideration in any discussion of the various problems that need to be solved. Let us give briefly, then, the most important facts in regard to the changes which have taken place in the history of these sounds.

II
MOVEMENT OF VOWEL-SOUNDS

The first vowel-sound of the alphabet—the a heard in father and far—has been aptly styled “the fundamental vowel-tone of the human voice.” But the noticeable fact about it in English is that it has not only gone largely out of use already, but that it tends to go out of use more and more. Once the most common of articulate utterances, it has now become one of the rarest. In reducing the employment of it English has gone beyond all other modern cultivated tongues. The decline in its use has been steady. “In the Sanskrit,” says Whitney, “in its long and short forms it makes over seventy per cent. of the vowels and about thirty per cent. of the whole alphabet.” In examining his own utterance he rated the frequency of its occurrence at a little more than half of one per cent. This may be taken as fairly representative of the fortunes which have generally befallen the sound. Different parts of the English-speaking world preserve it, indeed, in different degrees. In Great Britain—if I can take as typical of all persons the pronunciation of it furnished to my own ears by a few—it is retained more fully than in the United States. But even there it has for a long period been disappearing. There is no reason to suppose that with our present orthography this process will not continue to go on.

The loss of this sound would assuredly be a great calamity to the speech. The coming of that day may be distant; it is to be hoped that it will never come at all. Yet owing to the incapacity of our orthography to represent pronunciation strictly, and therefore hold it fast permanently, the sound is certainly in danger of following to the very end the road on which it has long been travelling. It shows every sign of steady though slow disappearance. Once it was heard generally in many classes of words where it is now never heard at all. Such, for instance, was the case when a was followed by n, as in answer, chance, dance, plant; by f, as in after; by s, as in grass, glass, pass; by st, as in last and vast. More than a century ago the lexicographer Walker contended that this sound must formerly have been always heard in these and such like words, because it was “still the sound given to them by the vulgar, who are generally the last to alter the common pronunciation.” There can be little doubt of the fact. In truth, Doctor Johnson distinctly specified rather, fancy, congratulate, glass among others as having it. Walker added that “the short a in these words”—those mentioned above—“is now the general pronunciation of the polite and learned world.” Hence, he felt justified in asserting that the ancient sound “borders very closely on vulgarity.”

This same result is showing itself in the instances where the vowel is followed by other letters or combinations of letters. Before lf and th—which can be illustrated respectively by calf, half, and by path, bath—the original sound, once generally heard, has given way largely and is still giving way. There are certainly many parts of the English-speaking world where the older pronunciation of it would be the exception and not the rule. The most effective agent in retaining it is a following r. In this case the sound is heard in no small number of words, as may be seen, for illustration, in bar and car. Another agency working for its retention, though far less powerful than the preceding, is a following l, as in balm and calm. But in this second case the sound is even now threatened with extinction. It exhibits in many places weakness of hold upon the utterance. Hence, it may come to take the road already trodden by other words in which it once showed itself. In the case of some of these, as a result of diminishing use, the sound, when heard, for illustration, in words like half and calf, is already looked upon by many as an affectation. Should such a feeling about it come not only to exist but to prevail when the vowel is followed by lm, its doom would be sealed. To hear psalm pronounced as the proper name Sam is still hateful to the orthoepically pure. Such a usage can as yet be politely termed a provincialism, or, insultingly, a vulgarism. Yet against the levelling tendency of an orthography which does not protect pronunciation, it is possible that the earlier sound of a in these words may not be able to hold out forever.

So much for the first vowel of the alphabet. We are as badly off, though in a different way, when we come to the second. It emphasizes the degeneracy which has overtaken our whole orthographic and orthoepic system that the name we now give to the first vowel was originally and still is scientifically the long sound of the second. The respective short and long values of this are heard in the words met and mate. In them are indicated the two sounds which the second vowel once had with us, and which it still retains in other cultivated tongues. The short sound continues to exist in all its primitive vigor, but the long sound is now very generally denoted by a. E itself no longer has it, save in the exclamation eh, and in certain cases where it is followed by i or y, such as vein and rein, and they or obey. Perhaps, indeed, it would be better to say that, strictly speaking, this letter by itself never indicates the sound at all; for the digraphs ei and ey, as we shall see later, have various distinct values, and are therefore entitled to be considered independently.

A condition of things not essentially dissimilar can be reported of the next vowel. Its original corresponding short and long sounds would be exactly represented by those heard in the words fill and feel. But the same transition or progression which has waited upon the second vowel has also attended the third. Its proper long sound has now become the name by which we regularly designate the second vowel. The fortunes of i have accordingly been about the same as those of its predecessor e. Here again the genuine short sound has been preserved in its integrity and on a large scale. But the letter is now only occasionally used to denote the long sound it had originally. This employment of it occurs too mainly in comparatively recent words of foreign origin. These have brought with them to a greater or less extent the pronunciation they had in the tongue from which they came. Some of the most common of these words are caprice and police; fatigue and intrigue; profile; machine, magazine, marine, and routine; and antique, critique, oblique, and pique. Once too it belonged to oblige, and even to this day the pronunciation obleege is occasionally heard.

What we call the third vowel is not a vowel, but a diphthong. We can see its sound and real character indicated in the Roman pronunciation of Cæsar, the German kaiser, or in the ae of the Spanish maestro. Against this general movement it can be said that the long and short sounds of the fourth vowel are much nearer their originals. This is by no means true, however, of the fifth. The genuine corresponding long and short sounds of it can be seen represented in the words fool and full. But we now almost universally apply the term “short u” to the neutral sound heard in but and burn. This sound occurs on the most extensive scale. It has, in fact, come to be one of the most common in our pronunciation, as to it all the vowels of the unaccented syllables are disposed to tend. Even the sound of u in accented syllables begins to show occasional traces of this degeneration. Who has not heard that provincial pronunciation of the verb put which gives it the exact value of the initial syllable of putty? With nothing in our orthography to give fixity to orthoepy, there is little limit to the possibilities lying before this so-called “short u” in the way of displacing other sounds.

Let us now summarize the facts of the situation. The primal sound of the first vowel is on the road to complete disappearance. The long sound of the second vowel has usurped the name and in part the proper functions of the first. The long sound of the third vowel has performed a similar office for the second. The third vowel, so-called, is a diphthong. On the other hand, the short sounds of these three vowels—seen in sat, set, sit—continue to exist in their original integrity. All of them are employed on an extensive scale. Furthermore, the regular long and short sounds of u have no longer the prominence they once had in connection with this vowel. To the popular apprehension the idea of it is supplied, as has just been said, by the neutral vowel-sound we call “short u.” This has largely taken the place of other vowel-sounds, and threatens to do so still more in the future.

The confusion in the use of the vowel-signs is itself reinforced by the condition of the alphabet. For the former, indeed, the latter is in no small measure responsible. Behind all the other agencies which have brought about the present wretched condition of our orthography stands out its one most glaring defect. The Roman alphabet we have adopted as our own is unequal to the demand made upon it. The three diphthongs being included in the consideration, we have at a low calculation fifteen vowel-sounds and but five characters to represent them. According to a more common calculation, we have eighteen vowel-sounds to be represented by this limited number. With the consonants we are a good deal better off. The supernumeraries being excluded, there are eighteen single characters for the twenty-four sounds to be denoted.