Hyperlink-Spelling (aka orthography) - Routledge

29 Pages·2011·0.9 MB·English

by  Lenovo User

Hyperlink-Spelling (aka orthography)
Spoken vs. written language: word form and spelling
Word form
Spelling (orthography)
Principles of writing
Syllabary
Ideograms
Alphabet
Runes, runic alphabet, aka the futhorc
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)
English spelling
OE spelling
Caedmon‟s Hymn
Middle English spelling
French influence
Ormulum
Chancery English
Caxton and the advent of printing
EModE spelling
The Great Vowel Shift (GVS)
Standardization of spelling
ModE spelling
Spelling reform; reform movements and reforms
Simplification
Regularization
Derivational uniformity
Reflection of pronunciation
Indication of stress
Pronunciation spellings
Hyphenation
Individual words
The New Spelling
Language planning and policy
Authorities (dictionaries, manuals of usage)
Spellers
Dictionaries
Manuals of usage
Spelling pronunciations
Scottish English
Non-standard spelling
Archaisms
Nonce and advertising spellings
Literary practices
Dialect spellings
Eye dialect
Literary comedians
Texting literature
Informal spellings
Word formation, borrowing, and spelling
Acronyms
Borrowings
Clippings
Hyperlink-Spelling (aka orthography)
Spoken vs. written language
Word form
Spelling (orthography)
(Principles of writing)
(Rules of English spelling)
(Historical practice)
(Present-Day practice)

Spoken vs. written language is a contrast which reflects two aspects of the same phenomenon. The
spoken language is primary in the sense that it is learned before the written language is. Indeed, speakers
of a language can be fluent and creative users of the language without necessarily being literate at all.
Furthermore, numerous languages spoken in today‟s world do not have a writing system. The written
language is, in the sense just mentioned, secondary, but it is not just a reflection of the spoken language
from which is somehow abstracted. It relies on different ways of expressing the distinctions which
speech makes by means of tempo, pitch, intonation, and stress, but it cannot replicate them fully, just
as it cannot reflect the voice quality of the individual speaker. On the other hand, handwriting, too, in
very individual and cannot be copied by speech style or voice quality. Furthermore, the written
language can make use of symbols (e.g. @, , , ), tables, diagrams and other figures – all of which
cannot be reproduced in the spoken language or at least not easily.
The spoken language is more immediate (usually restricted to people close by), generally more short-lived
(bar a recording), more spontaneous, and more individual while the written language is more
independent of the circumstances of its production, accessible over a longer period of time, often
carefully planned and even edited, and subject to conventions of standardization, including spelling in
particular. Written grammar tends to be fussier and more complex than spoken grammar, but also
more generally free of the lexical vagaries like and stuff, fillers such as like or y’know, false starts (well, I, I
… she finally said yes), hesitiation signals (uh), and redundancies (I liked it – it was really good, absolutely tops)
of speech. Perhaps because of these differences many speakers of the language consider the written
language to be the “real” language and miss the point that the two forms of the language fulfill
different functions, each appropriate and legitimate in its own right.
As far as English is concerned, there are probably quite a few speakers of the language besides young
children who are not (functionally) literate. On the other hand, as English spreads across the world as a
global language there are probably very many users of the language who are more comfortable with the
written than the spoken language, esp. since spelling is highly fixed while accent varies enormously.
Word form is the shape of a lexeme on a particular occasion, including an identical sequence of letters or
sounds. Example: Herkneth to me, gode men - Wives, maydnes, and alle men - Of a tale that ich you wile telle
(Text 4.6) has eighteen different word forms; in other words, both occurrences of men count separately
as do me and ich, which are two forms of one single lexeme (the 1st person singular personal pronoun).
A word form is the concrete, physical occurrence of a word and may be graphic or phonetic in nature;
indeed, it may be tactile (e.g. in the braille alphabet) or visually signed in sign language. In contrast, a
lexeme is abstract, which means that the repeated occurrence of the “same” word form can only be
interpreted as the occurrence of same lexeme more than once.
Spelling (orthography) is the conventional means of representing language in the written medium.
English uses the Latin alphabet for this, but once also used runes. The principle of English spelling is
– despite its bad reputation, which itself is due largely to a lack of serious spelling reform – phonetic.
Many of the exceptions are due to borrowing or to sound changes (see also archaisms) which have
occurred since spelling was fixed. Examples: <ea> is regularly used for /i/ as in <beat>, but uneven
change means that quite a few exceptions exist where the pronunciation is /e/, e.g. <death>, and a
few where it is /e/ <great>.
(Spoken vs. written language: word form and spelling)
Principles of writing
Syllabary
Ideograms
Alphabet
Runes
IPA
(Rules of English spelling)
(Historical practice)
(Present-Day practice)

Principles of writing can be realized in a wide variety of ways. Some languages use a syllabary, some use
ideograms or a logogram system of characters, others, like English use an alphabet. There are also
rebus-supported systems of writing.
A syllabary makes use of graphic symbols which stand not for a single sound (or phoneme), but for a
combination of sounds, usually a consonant + vowel combination, which together make up a syllable.
Japanese uses a syllabary, as does Cherokee. Example: the following comes from a chart of the
syllabary used to write the Cherokee language. As you can see, the first line combines an initial /ts/and
the second line an initial /w/ with the vowels in each column: a – e – i – o – u – . All told the
Cherokee syllabary consists of some 85 syllabograms.

Ideograms are characters said to correspond to “ideas” (meanings) rather than to pronunciations.
Chinese is the best known example of a language with a writing system made up of ideograms. The
total number of characters which are available for Chinese may lie close to 50,000 even though
normally well educated users of Chinese can manage very well with between three and four thousand.
Example:
is the character for hànzì “Chinese character.”
English stands in distinct contrast to Chinese inasmuch as it uses a phonetic writing system or alphabet.
English does, of course, use holistic symbols such as <#> or <%> or <$>, and, indeed, it always has
as we see in the use of <7>, a character from the Tironian notes (devised by Marcus Tullius Tiro, 103-
4 BE), the secretary of Cicero, as a stenographic short-hand ), which stands for ond “and” in much the
way that <&> (ampersand) does today. English sometimes indulges in the fun of a text containing
rebus forms (a rebus is picture or symbol which resembles the intended sound or spelling). Example:

(A poor old man was driving a pig to market with a whip tied to its leg when by some accident the pig
got loose. The man ran after him, but piggy es[caped] …
While the example just given is a bit older, we should not forget that people still love the ludic element
in such texts and play it out in texting or e-mail language.
Alphabet is a system of written symbols which represent sounds. In our case, an alphabet, but which one?
For there are quite a few. Examples: (Greek); а б в г д е(Cyrillic); (Hebrew); or a b c
d e (Latin)? OE used runes in the very early period, but OE spelling adopted the Latin alphabet with
the phonetic values of the letters associated with it and added new letters to represent some of the
sounds which differed from Latin. These graphs include thorn <þ>, which is used for present-day
<th>, as is <>, called eth. In Text 2.1 <þ> occurs initially only, as in þis “this” or þā “the/those
(nominative plural)”; and <> elsewhere, e.g. fri “peace, refuge” or oerne “other, second, next.” Both
of them are pronounced either as voiceless// or voiced //depending on their position in a word
and the stress pattern of the word. Wynn <ƿ> for /w/ is a further graph used in OE, but not present
in the Latin alphabet. A final, slightly unusual letter is <æ> as in þær “there, then.” It is called “ash”
and is pronounced as a low front vowel, for which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) uses
the same symbol /æ/.
Very limited use was made in OE of distinct capital letters. However, the differentiation began to grow as
the Carolingian script spread in the period after the 9th century. The parallel existence of both uncial
(majuscule) script and Carolingian minuscule script led to a capital-lower case distinction (Color plate
no. 2.2 Mercy and Truth [Carolingian minuscule]). ME added the letter yogh <ȝ> for /j/, /g/, and
//. In the long term the Latin alphabet was adopted in its classical form with 23 letters. During the
EModE period printers ceased to use the letters unfamiliar to present-day readers of English even
though <y> sometimes served as a replacement for earlier <þ> (see Text 6.2, where ye stands for both
the and thee).
In EModE <i/j> and <u/v> stood in complementary distribution: Initial <v> was used not only where
ModE has <v> as in vallies but also where it has <u> as in Vranias; medial <u> appears in both
huntresse and loue (see Text 6.4). The letter <j> was still rare at the beginning of the period; instead <i>
was used for both the vowel (him) and the consonant (Iesus). Furthermore, we often find <y> where
ModE has <i>: Text 6.2 has both hys and his.
The present English alphabet of 26 letters was finally established when it added three new distinct
graphemes: <w> replaced wynn and a once truly double <u>; and the two pairs of complementary
allographs <i/j> and <u/v> became as distinct graphemes <i> and <u> for vowels and <j> and
<v> for consonants from the end of the Renaissance on.
Other letters than the familiar twenty-six do, in fact, crop up, but these are either printers ligatures like
<œ> for <oe> as in fœtus and <æ> for <ae> as in mediæval or they are graphs (letter forms)
borrowed along with foreign words. Examples: <ç>, <à>, and <ï>, all from French as in façon, vis-à-vis,
and naïve; <ñ> from Spanish as in señor; or <ö> from German as in föhn.
Runes, runic alphabet, aka the futhorc (from the names of the first six runes, as given in the table
below) make up an alphabet used, among others, by the Germanic peoples mostly for inscriptions.
Some of the letters resemble ones in the Latin alphabet; other may have come from Northern Italian
alphabets. The following table reproduces the futhorc (see also Color plate no. 2.1 Runic Pin):
feoh (f) ur (u) thorn (þ, th) ós (o) rad (r) cen (c/k) gyfu (, g/j) wynn (w) hægl (h) nyd (n) is (i)
ger (j) eoh (eo) peor (p) eolh (x, k) sigel (s) Tiw (t) beorc (b) eh (eoh) (e) mann (m) lagu (l)
ing () éel () dæg (d) ac (a) æsc (æ) yr (y) ior (ia, io) ear (ea)
Relatively few texts written using the furthorc have been passed on. Text 2.2 is one such example,
taken from the Ruthwell Cross (erected in the 7th century) in Southern Scotland and bearing a excerpt
from the poem “The Dream of the Rood.”
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) (see following chart found at IPA_chart_2005.png). The IPA
offers an alternative set of symbols used to designate sounds unambiguously. If used broadly each
phoneme in a language is assigned one symbol. Example: the <j> in jet, the <dg> in lodge, and the <g>
in privilege are all /d/. A narrow transcription is more strictly phonemic and distinguishes allophonic
variants such as monophthongal [e] and diphthongal [e] for /e/ as in late.
(Spoken vs. written language: word form and spelling)
(Principles of writing)
Rules of English spelling
Rules of OE spelling
Rules of ModE spelling
(Historical practice)
(Present-Day practice)

English spellings follow a relatively straight-forward set of phonetic principles. The reputation of
English spelling is, however, notoriously bad. This lies in the fact the realization of the principles draws
on a large number of traditional spellings which themselves go back to differing conventions of both
spelling and pronunciation. Above all, English orthography has been relatively resistant toward
spelling reform. Among the important traditions we must count (1) the presumed phonetic quality of
the vowels associated with the letters of the Latin alphabet in OE times; (2) French writing
conventions which were adopted in part in the period after the Norman Conquest; (3) differing
regional spelling traditions based on sometimes clearly differing regional pronunciations of English;
(4) the unhistorical remodeling of spelling to conform to the etymological sources of individual
words; (5) the maintenance of older spellings despite often major changes in the pronunciation, as due,
for example, to the Great Vowel Shift; and, finally, widespread borrowing from other languages along
with the foreign spelling conventions. All of this is coupled with a great inertia in undertaking
reform. There were some modest, but widely accepted changes in the EModE period or shortly after
it. But even the limited reforms generally prevailing in AmE have not been embraced within the BrE
spelling tradition.
OE spelling (2.3.1) did not have the strict convention of spaces between words that we are familiar with.
Although most texts used a modified Latin alphabet, not all did. There were, furthermore, regional
differences in spelling which had in part to do with regional differences in pronunciation, but also with
different scribal traditions. Since by far the largest number of OE texts which we have fall within the
Wessex standard, the latter point is not very prominent. For texts which reveals both sorts of
difference, see Text 2.6 and the discussion of it in 2.5.4 (see also below Caedmon’s Hymn).
The OE spelling of the consonants was much more regular than ModE spellings are. The most
inconsistent was the spelling of the fricative. The graph <þ> did not distinguish between the voiceless
and voiced allophones [] and []. Likewise <f> could be /f/ or /v/ and <s>, /s/ or /z/. This was
not a problem however, since the voiceless fricatives /f, , s/ were restricted to initial or final position
while /v, , z/ were medial. Examples: and forgyf us ūre gyltas, swā swā we forgyfaþ ūrum gyltendum (from
the Lord‟s Prayer, Matthew 6:12 qtd from Carpenter 1891: 52) “And forgive us our debts, as we
forgive our debtors,” where the initial and final <f> in forgyf are both /f/, but the second <f> in
forgyfa is voiced /v/. In contrast, <sc> is always the voiceless fricative //. Example: biscopes
“bishops.” And <cg> is always /d/. Example: ecg “edge.” The letter <c> is somewhat difficult to
interpret. Before the front vowels <i> and <ea> palatalization was generally the case, giving us /t/, as
in ciricean “church”; elsewhere <c> is /k/, as, for example, in cyning “king,” diacones “deacon,” or drincæ
“drinks.” In much the same manner <g> may be /j/ before front vowels, as in dæge “days,” gif “if” or
in the verbal prefix ge-, but // elsewhere, cf. gylde “(re-)pay” and scillinga “shillings” (examples from
Text 2.1). One final ambiguous letter is <h>. At the beginning of a word it has the value of /h/, as in
him “him” (3rd person dative) or hām “home,” but it is /x/, like German <ch> or Spanish <j>, before
a consonant, as in Æelbirht or at the end of a word as in feoh “property” (ModE fee).
The letter-vowels are assumed to have been pronounced much like their “Continental” values, but the use
of macrons – or long marks – over the vowel letters in many editions of OE texts is a purely
convenient modern convention based on the presumed length of the vowel, viz. long <ā, æ, ē, ī, ō, ū,
y> with a macron and the same letters without a macron as short. For two vowel-letters together in
words like feoh or gebiege we assume a diphthongal pronunciation /eo/ and /iy/ (cf. Hogg 1992 or Blake
1996 for details on OE pronunciation).
Blake, N. (1996) A History of the English Language. Houndsmill: Palgrave.
Carpenter, S.H. (1891) “The Sermon on the Mount,” In: An Introduction to the Study of the Anglo-Saxon
Language. Boston: Ginn, 49-55.
Hogg, R.M. (1992) “Phonology and Morphology,” In: R.M. Hogg (ed.) The Cambridge History of the
English Language. vol. I. The Beginnings to 1066. Cambridge: CUP, 67-167.
Caedmon’s Hymn is a late 7th century composition which exists in several different versions. The
manuscript from 737 gives us some idea of Anglian usage, and this can be compared to West Saxon
usage. The choice of words in the two versions below is identical with the exception of l.5, which has
Anglian scop aelda barnum “created, the High Lord, for men”, but West Saxon sceop eorðan bearnum
“created the earth for men.” The major differences are to be found in the vowels. It is widely
recognized that West Saxon underwent a process of diphthongization which does not show up in
northern texts. Vowel qualities also seem to have varied. Some apparent differences are, however,
probably only spelling conventions. Since the two texts come from different regions and from
difference times, the variation may be due to either factor or both. The following table, drawn from
material in the texts, is only a selection of the spelling contrasts (see Text 2.6 and the discussion there;
Blake 1996: 69-73; 115-119).
Early Anglian (Northumbrian, MS of 737) Early West Saxon (1st half of 10th century)

metudæs maecti end his modgidanc, meotodes meahte and his modgeþanc, 2
The Creator‟s power and His conception,
uerc uuldurfadur, sue he uundra gihuaes, weorc wuldorfæder, swa he wundra gehwæs,
The work of the Father of Glory, as He of every wonder
Anglian West Saxon Spellings
metuds meotodes <> vs. <e> for [e]; the former: an older (or archaic)
form
maecti meahte <c>+C vs. <h>+C for [ç]
modgidanc, -, tha modgeþanc, eoran, þa <d/th> vs. < /þ> for [/]
uerc uuldurfadur weorc wuldorfæder <u> vs. < w> for [w]
-fadur -fder <-ur> vs. <-er> for later <-er>; the former an old
genitive
Excerpt from “Cædmon‟s Hymn”: 2009
Following the early, 7th century literary primacy of Northumbria with Bede and Caedmon, as represented
by the preceding text, the literary and political center moved southward to Mercia in the 8th century.
Evidence of the Mercian tradition is to be found in the Life of St. Chad, which is preserved in a 12th
century manuscript, but employs 9th century spelling. This text suggests a pre-Alfredian interest in
translation and reveals a relatively standardized language (Blake 1996: 76). But clearly Mercian power
and the Mercian literary tradition (see Cynwulf) were destroyed by the Norse incursions.
Consequently, West Saxon was to be the standard language, and its spelling what we are most likely to
meet with.
Blake, N. (1996) A History of the English Language. Houndsmill: Palgrave.
Middle English spelling could no longer rely on the orthographic system introduced in connection with
the standardization of West Saxon. Although the West Saxon scribal tradition continued to be
practiced after the Conquest, the surviving standard was no longer prestigious and gradually grew
outdated by change. A number of conventions began to shift, probably largely due to contact with
French. Although no standard emerged in the early ME period, it is possible to see some more or less
general effects. One of these is that non-Latin letters fell into disuse. Eventually, <y> would be used as
a consonant for /j/ and <> would be fully retired. Examples: <i/j>: geong vs. jonge; and <g>: iff vs.
gif. <þ> and <> were being replaced by <th>: þat vs. that or oer vs. othere. Winn <ƿ> now became
rare; and <u>, <uu>, and <w> are used in its place. Independent of these considerations <k> was
coming to be used for /k/, esp. near a front vowel, where <c> + <e, i> would lead to
misinterpretation as /s/ rather than /k/ <k> with front vowels priketh, seeken. Among the grapheme
combinations OE <hw> for /hw/ was somewhat illogically reversed to <wh>, probably under the
influence of other combinations (see ModE spelling) which used <h> as a diacritic, esp. <th>,
<ch>, and <sh/sch>. In the north and East Anglia <qu, u> and in east Midlands <w-> were also
used for /hw/. By this time <c, sc> had been replaced elsewhere by “French-inspired spellings” <ch,
sch> (ibid.: 130).
An account of changes in the spelling of the vowels is considerably more challenging since there were
significant regional differences in pronunciation. A few examples will have to suffice. OE <y>,
originally rounded front /y()/, had become <e> in the southeast, but rounding was retained in the
southwest where <u>, a French spelling, but also <ui> and <uy> occurred. High back rounded /u/
was frequently spelled <ou> in French fashion, esp. in French borrowings licour, flour. And the raising
of OE ā to // led to the use of <o> or <oo> goon, hoot; and <> began increasingly to alternate with
<e> or <a> frd ~ ferd or sahte ~ shte (Blake 1996: 118).
As was the case in OE, in ME, too, there were regional differences which showed up in spelling.
Northern Southern ModE
Sanges sere of selcuth rime, Mony songes of dyuerse ryme Many a song of different rime,
Inglis, frankys, and latine, As englisshe frensshe & latyne In English, French, and Latin.
to rede and here Ilkon is prest, To rede & here mony are prest Each one to read and hear is pressed*
þe thynges þat þam likes best. Of þinges þat hem likeþ best The things that please them all the best.
Text 4.8: Parallel excerpts from Cursor Mundi, Northern (Cotton) and Southern (Trinity) versions
Pronunciation (through spelling):
Northern English has /a/ for OE ā, where Southern English has // (sanges-songes; also S: mony)
Northern <s>, probably /s/ for Southern <ssh> // (Inglis-englisshe; frankys-frensshe)
Spelling (with no consequences for pronunciation):
Northern English tends to <i> for Southern <y>, but cf. l. 4 (thynges-þinges
Northern has <th> twice and <þ> twice; Southern has only <þ>
Blake, N. (1996) A History of the English Language. Houndsmill: Palgrave.
French influence on the spelling of English became an important and lasting factor in the ME period.
The most significant influence was on vocabulary, but French also reinforced or initiated structural
innovations and influenced spelling. Examples: <qu> for OE <cu> or <cw> quod, quen; <ch> instead
of OE <c> for /t/ chapel, pynchen; <sch> or <sh> instead of OE <sc> for // frendschipe or shoures; and
the distinction between /f/ and /v/ as well as between /s/ and /z/, which were positional variants of
<f> and <s> in OE, is now made maintained by <f> vs. <v/u> over vs. OE ofer. The new letter <z>
was introduced where OE usage would have made do with <s> as lazar “leper” < Lazarus. Gradually,
<th> replaced <þ> and <>, but then as now no orthographic distinction was made between // and
//. And, finally, the representation of the vowels underwent changes due in part to French.
Examples: <ou> instead of OE <u> for /u/ shoures, oure; <> was to disappear in favor of either
<e> or <a>.
Ormulum (see 4.2.3), written in the second half of the 12th century, is one of the key texts in respect to
spelling in ME. This early northeastern text (the author Orm(in) wrote it in Bourne, Lincolnshire)
reveals the author‟s efforts at using a more standardized form of the written language. Although Orm
does not seem to have had imitators. He took great care to distinguish the three sounds, /, j, d/
otherwise represented by OE <> by using two (or including a special <g> with a flat top, three)
distinct graphemes. Orm distinguished between // using <g> and /j/ or /x/ using <>. Example:
grimme “grim, fierce” vs. iff “if” (Text 4.5: Admonition from the Ormulum, second half of 12th
century).
Especially fascinating is his system of indicating long vowels by letting them be followed by a single
consonant only while short vowels were followed by doubled consonants. Examples: þiss boc iss
nemmnedd Orrmulum forrþi þatt Orrm itt wrohhte. “This book is named Ormulum for Orm created it”
(“Preface to Ormulum, ll. 1-2), where all the vowels are short except those in boc, the <u>‟s of
Orrmulum, and <i> in forrþi; the <e> of wrohhte is presumably short. Short and long vowels, which had
not been orthographically distinguished in OE, were differentiated here: the short ones were followed
by double consonant-letters and the long ones by only one, e.g. l. 5 follc (“folk, people”) // vs. l. 7 god
(“good”) /o/. This indicates that the long-short consonant distinction of OE had presumably been
lost (Blake 1996: 125). Orm also sometimes used single accents to mark long vowels (l. 2 tór “difficult”)
or double ones (l. 7 üt “out”).
Blake, N. (1996) A History of the English Language. Houndsmill: Palgrave.
Chancery English, the language of the government administration in London was available as the basis
for spelling from about 1400 on. The clerks of the Chancery were trained into a system of writing