Lecture 14
ModE Spelling
NE Spelling
ME Spelling
OE Spelling
Historical Background of Modern English Spelling
Lecture 13
· based on phonetic principle;
· employed Latin characters;
· one letter = one sound;
Exceptions: ζ, f, s, ð(1 letter = 2 or more sounds).
· based on conventional principle;
· more ambiguous and less stable (printing was not introduced yet and the manuscripts contained numerous variants of spelling – practically each scribe had its own way to spell the words);
· digraphs (2 letters = 1 sound) appear + 1 letter = several sounds, several letters/combinations of letters = 1 sound (these were the deviations from phonetic principle):
1 letter = several sounds | several letters/combinations of letters = 1 sound | ||
letter | sounds | letters | sound |
o | [o], [u], [o:], [ǿ] | g, dg, j | [dζ] |
c | [s], [k] | k, c, q | [k] |
g | [g], [dζ] | ||
u | [u], [v] |
· based on conventional principle was preserved;
· new digraphs appeared (indicated borrowings from other languages) – ph, ps, ch;
· spelling became fixed.
There reasons for such stabilisation were as follows:
· Introduction of Printing (1475) (see Lecture 9) à one obligatory standard!
· Normalisation of the language (17th – 18th c.) (see Lecture 9)à one obligatory standard!
Modern English spelling reflects pronunciation of the 14th – 15th c.
See also Table 12 on p. 216-218 in “История английского языка” by Т.А. Расторгуева.