The aim of spelling reform is to make spelling easier for learners and users by removing its difficulties. Spelling is the Writing of a Word or words with the necessary letters and Diacritics present in an accepted standard order It attempts to remove irreflections between what is written and spoken. It may be associated with other efforts of language planning and language reform. This article is about the field of language planning & policy Language reform is a type of Language planning by massive change to a Language.
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Arguments on reformation
In languages written with alphabetic or syllabary scripts there is theoretically a close match of the script or spelling with the spoken sound. An alphabet is a standardized set of letters basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a Phoneme, a Spoken language, either A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate Syllables which make up Words A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional Phonetics (from the Greek φωνή ( phonê) "sound" or "voice" is the study of the physical sounds of human speech However, even if they match at one time and place for some speakers, over time they often do not match well for the majority; one sound may be represented by various letters and one letter pronounced in various ways. In cases where spelling is used to highlight grammatical features these too may become inconsistent. Grammar is the field of Linguistics that covers the Rules governing the use of any given natural language.
People with non-standard spelling often suffer prejudice, since the mastery of standard spelling is often thought to go hand in hand with the level of formal education or intelligence. A standard language (also standard dialect, standardized dialect, or standardised dialect) is a particular variety of a Language that Some educators argue that literation is easier in languages that make use of consistent spelling systems—like Finnish, Polish, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish—than in languages which use anachronistic or complicated spellings—like French or English. Finnish ( or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% As of 2006) and by ethnic Finns outside Polish ( język polski, polszczyzna) is the Official language of Poland. Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. Portuguese ( or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia (Spain and northern Portugal. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States
Proposed spelling reforms range from modest attempts to eliminate particular irregularities (such as SR1) through more far-reaching reforms (such as Cut Spelling) to attempts to introduce a full phonemic orthography, like the Shavian alphabet or its revised version, Quikscript, the latest DevaGreek alphabet,[1] the Latinization of Turkish or hangul in Korea. SR1 was a Spelling reform proposal advocated by Harry Lindgren. Cut Spelling A phonemic orthography is a Writing system where the written Graphemes correspond to Phonemes the spoken sounds of the language The Shavian alphabet (also known as Shaw alphabet) is an Alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple phonetic orthography for the English language QUIKSCRIPT is a Simulation language derived from SIMSCRIPT, based on 20-GATE. The Turkish alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters a certain number of which ( Ç, Korea is a geographic area composed of two sovereign countries a civilization and a former state situated on the Korean Peninsula in East Asia.
Stated reasons for these reforms include making the language more useful for international communications and easier to learn for immigrants and children. Immigration refers to the movement of people among countries While the movement of people has existed throughout human history at various levels modern immigration implies long-term Opposition to reforms is often based upon concern that old literature will become inaccessible, the presumed suppression of regional accents, or simple conservatism based upon concern over unforeseen consequences. Reform efforts are further hampered by habit and a lack of a central authority to set new spelling standards. This is a list of bodies that regulate Standard languages Natural languages Auxiliary languages Interlingua The auxiliary language
Superfluity of graphemes (letters) is often an issue in spelling reform, which prompts the "Economic Argument"—significant cost savings in the production materials over time—as promulgated by George Bernard Shaw, although it requires a rare, altruistic farsightedness to fully appreciate it, and, especially in the modern context, acquires an environmentalist aspect, thus turning into the Environmentalist Argument. In Typography, a grapheme is the fundamental unit in written language. George Bernard Shaw ( (26 July 1856 &ndash 2 November 1950 was an Irish Playwright.
The idea of phonemic spelling has also been criticized, on the grounds that it would hide morphological similarities between words that happen to have quite different pronunciations. Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words This line of argument is based on the idea that when people read, they do not in reality try to work out the sequence of sounds composing each word, but instead either recognise words as a whole, or as a sequence of small number of semantically significant units (for example morphology might be read as morph+ology, rather than as a sequence of a larger number of phonemes). The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU In a system of phonetic spelling, these semantic units become less distinct, as various allomorphs can be pronounced differently in different contexts. This article is about a linguistic term See Pseudomorph for another For example, in English spelling, most past participles are spelled with an -ed on the end, even though this can have several pronunciations (compare kissed and interrupted). In Linguistics, a participle (from Latin participium, a Calque of Greek μετοχη "partaking" is a derivative of a non-finite This argument has been used in controversies over orthography among peoples of the former Soviet Union whose languages have been switched from the Latin alphabet to the Cyrillic alphabet and back again, notably Moldovan where the switch to a Latin alphabet was accompanied by a move to phonemic spelling. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 Russification (in Russian: русификация rusifikátsiya)is an adoption of the Russian language or some other Russian attribute (whether voluntarily The Cyrillic alphabet (səˈrɪlɪk also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters is actually a family of Alphabets, subsets of which are used by History and politics According to critics this severed etymological links between related words, thus destroying what they considered as subtleties of the languages (Moldovan is a variation of Romanian, a Romance language written using Cyrillic for four centuries before it switched to the Latin alphabet in the late nineteenth century). Romanian or Daco-Romanian ( dated: Rumanian or Roumanian; self designation limba română, ˈlimba roˈmɨnə is a Romance The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages, or Neolatin languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family comprising all
One of the concerns in introducing a spelling reform is how to reflect different pronunciations, often linked to regions or classes. If the reform tries to be absolutely phonemic according to some model dialect, some speakers will find collisions with their usage.
English
English spelling contains many irregularities due to a number of factors. English spelling reform is the collective term for various campaigns and efforts to change the Spelling of the English language to make it simpler and more rationally English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. The large number of words assimilated from other languages is one of them; an even greater cause is the fact that English began to be widely written and printed during the Middle English period. Middle English is the name given by Historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman invasion of While English spelling was relatively systematic during the Middle English period, the shift to modern English involved undergoing a Great Vowel Shift and many other changes in phonology. Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift, completed in roughly 1550 The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the Pronunciation of the English language that took place in the south of England between 1200 and Phonology ( Greek φωνή (phōnē voice sound + λόγος (lógos word speech subject of discussion is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning The older, etymological spellings have been retained despite major shifts in phonology. Etymology is the study of the History of Words &mdash when they entered a language from what source and how their form and meaning have changed over time
Modern English has anywhere from fourteen to twenty-two separate vowel and diphthong phonemes, depending on dialect, and 26 or 27 consonants. In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος dialektos) is a variety of a Language that is characteristic of a particular group of In Articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a Speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper Vocal tract, the upper vocal A simple phoneme-letter representation of this language with the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet is impossible and multi-letter graphemes are a part of most spelling reform proposals (they are part of current English spelling as well, for example the first two phonemes of "sheep", /ʃiːp/ are represented by the digraphs <sh>, /ʃ/ and <ee>, /i/) respectively. The modern English alphabet consists of 26 letters derived from the Latin alphabet: History See also History of the In Typography, a grapheme is the fundamental unit in written language. A digraph, bigraph, or digram is a pair of characters used to write one Phoneme (distinct sound or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond Diacritical marks have also formed part of spelling reform proposals. A diacritic ( also called a diacritic or diacritical mark, point, or sign, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation
Practicalities of devising a phonemically based system are also the target of criticism. For example, phoneme distribution differs between English English and American English; furthermore, while English Received Pronunciation features about 20 vowels, some second language varieties of English have 10 or even fewer. English language in England refers to the English language as spoken in England, part of the United Kingdom. Phonology North American English regional phonology In many ways compared to English English, North American English is conservative in its Phonology. Received Pronunciation ( RP) is a form of Pronunciation of the English language (specifically British English) which has long been perceived as A phonemic system would therefore not be universal.
A number of proposals have been made to reform English spelling. Some were proposed by Noah Webster early in the 19th century. Noah Webster (October 16 1758 &ndash May 28 1843 was an American Lexicographer, textbook author Spelling reformer word enthusiast and editor He was in part concerned to distinguish American from British usage. Some, but by no means all, of his suggestions result in the differences between American and British spelling. American and British English spelling differences are one aspect of American and British English differences.
Other languages
French
In 1990, a substantial reform ordered by the French prime minister changed the spelling of about 2000 words as well as some grammar rules. The Orthography of French was already more or less fixed and from a phonological point of view outdated when its Lexicography developed in the late 17th The Prime Minister of France ( Premier ministre français) in Fifth Republic is the functional Head of the government and Council of Ministers With much delay, the new recommended orthography received official support in France, Belgium and Quebec in 2004, but it has not been widely adopted. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. The Kingdom of Belgium is a Country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters as well as those Quebec (kwɨˈbɛk Some major French-language dictionaries have incorporated some of the changes.
German
Even though German spelling has already been much more consistent than English or French spelling, German speaking countries signed an agreement for spelling reforms in 1996, planned to be gradually introduced beginning in 1998 and fully used in 2005. The German spelling reform of 1996 ( Rechtschreibreform) is based on an international agreement signed in Vienna in July 1996 by the governments of the German -speaking The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages.
The so-called Rechtschreibreform is still subject to dispute, and polls consistently show a majority against the new rules. In Summer of 2004, several newspapers and magazines returned to the old rules.
It was not the first reform of the German spelling. There was an earlier reform in 1901. In 1944 another was due to be introduced, but ultimately came to nothing because of the war situation.
Greek
The classical, medieval, and early modern polytonic orthography contained a number of archaisms inherited from Ancient Greek, which have been dispensed with or simplified in the modern monotonic orthography. The Greek language question (γλωσσικό ζήτημα short το γλωσσικό was a dispute discussing the question whether the language of the Greek people ( Dimotiki In Language, an archaism is the use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current The Ancient Greek language is the historical stage in the development of the Hellenic language family spanning the Archaic (c See also Katharevousa. Katharevousa (Καθαρεύουσα, lit "the purified one" is a form of the Greek language conceived in the early 19th century by Greek intellectual
Indonesian
- Related article: Differences between Malay and Indonesian: Orthography
Indonesian underwent spelling reforms in 1947 and 1972, after which its spelling was more consistent with the form of the language spoken in Malaysia (i. The differences between Malay ( Bahasa Melayu or Bahasa Malaysia) and Indonesian ( Bahasa Indonesia) are slightly greater Indonesian or Bahasa Indonesia, based on the Riau version of Malay language, was declared the official language with the declaration of e. Malay). The Malay language ( ISO 639-1 code MS is an Austronesian language spoken by the Malay people and people of other ethnic groups who reside in the
| Old spelling | New spelling |
|---|---|
| oe | u |
| tj | c |
| dj | j |
| j | y |
The first of these changes (oe to u) occurred around the time of independence in 1947; all of the others were a part of an officially-mandated spelling reform in 1972. Some of the old spellings, which were more closely derived from the Dutch language, still survive in proper names. Dutch ( is a West Germanic language spoken by around 24 million people 22 million of which are from the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname
Japanese
The original Japanese kana syllabaries were a purely phonetic representation used for writing the Japanese language when they were invented around 800 AD as a simplification of Chinese-derived kanji characters. The refers to a Kanazukai (system of spelling the Japanese syllabary) that is antiquated because it is no longer in accord with the Japanese pronunciation Kana is a general term for the syllabic Japanese scripts Hiragana (ひらがな and Katakana (カタカナ as well as the old system A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate Syllables which make up Words A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with Hiragana (ひらがな 平仮名 Katakana However, the syllabaries were not completely codified and alternate letterforms, or hentaigana, existed for many sounds until standardization in 1900. are alternative Kana letterforms equivalent to standard kana characters In addition, due to linguistic drift the pronunciation of many Japanese words changed, mostly in a systematic way, from the classical Japanese language as spoken when the kana syllabaries were invented. There are two types of Linguistic drift, a Unidirectional Short-term and Cyclic Long-term drift Short-term unidirectional The Classical Japanese language (文語 bungo) is the literary form of the Japanese language that was the standard until the early Shōwa period. Despite this, words continued to be spelled in kana as they were in classical Japanese, reflecting the classic rather than the modern pronunciation, until a Cabinet order in 1946 officially adopted spelling reform, making the spelling of words purely phonetic and dropping characters that represented sounds no longer used in the language. The refers to a Kanazukai (system of spelling the Japanese syllabary) that is antiquated because it is no longer in accord with the Japanese pronunciation
Norwegian
- Related article: Norwegian language struggle
Before Norway became independent in 1905, the Norwegian language was written in Danish with minor characteristic regionalisms and idioms. The Norwegian language struggle ( målstriden, språkstriden or sprogstriden) is an ongoing controversy within Norwegian culture and politics Norwegian ( norsk) is a North Germanic Language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language After independence, there were spelling reforms in 1907, 1917, 1938, 1941 and 1981, reflecting the tug-of-war between the spelling style preferred by traditionalists or reformers depending on social class, urbanization, ideology, education and dialect.
Portuguese
The original medieval spelling of Portuguese was mostly phonetic, but, from the Renaissance on, many authors who admired classical culture began to use an etymological orthography. This article is about the spelling reforms of the Portuguese language. In the early 20th century, however, spelling reforms in Portugal and Brazil reverted the orthography to phonetic principles. Subsequent reforms have aimed mainly at three objectives, with variable success: to eliminate the few traces of redundant etymological spelling that remained, to reduce the number of words marked with diacritics, and to bring the Brazilian spelling standard and the European-African spelling standard closer to each other.
Russian
Over the time, there were a number of changes in spelling. The Old Russian language adopted the Cyrillic alphabet, approximately during the tenth century and at about the same time as the introduction of Eastern Christianity They were mostly related with elimination of letters of the Cyrillic alphabet rendered obsolete by changes in phonetics. The Cyrillic alphabet (səˈrɪlɪk also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters is actually a family of Alphabets, subsets of which are used by Phonetics (from the Greek φωνή ( phonê) "sound" or "voice" is the study of the physical sounds of human speech
When Peter I introduced his "civil script" in 1708, based on more western-looking letter shapes, spelling was simplified as well.
The most recent major reform of Russian spelling was carried out shortly after the Russian Revolution. See also Russian Revolution (1905 The Russian Revolution of 1916 refers to a series of popular revolutions in Russia, and the events surrounding them The Russian orthography was simplified by eliminating four obsolete letters and the archaic usage of the letter yer (hard sign) at the ends of words, which had originally been a vowel with a sound similar to schwa, but had become silent by the 20th century. The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific Writing system to write the language The letter Yer or Jer ( Ъ, ъ) of the Cyrillic alphabet is known as the hard sign (твёрдый знак znak in the modern In Linguistics, specifically Phonetics and Phonology, schwa can mean the following An unstressed and toneless neutral
Spanish spelling
There have been several initiatives to reform the spelling of Spanish: Andrés Bello succeeded in making his proposal official in several South American countries, but they later returned to the RAE standard. Andrés de Jesús María y José Bello López (b Caracas, Venezuela, d The Real Academia Española (“Royal Spanish Academy” the RAE, is the official royal institution responsible for regulating the Spanish language
Another initiative, the Ortografía Fonética Rasional Ispanoamericana, remained a curiosity. Juan Ramón Jiménez proposed changing -ge- and -gi to -je- and ji, but this is applied only in editions of his works or his wife's. Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón ( Moguer, Spain, 24 December, 1881 – Santurce, Puerto Rico, 29 May, 1958 Zenobia Camprubí Aymar (c 1887 &ndash 25 October 1956) was a Spanish -born Writer and Poet; she was also a noted translator of the Gabriel García Márquez raised the issue of reform during a congress at Zacatecas, and drew attention to the issue, but no resultant changes. Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez (born March 6 1927 is a Colombian Zacatecas is a city in Mexico, the capital of the state of Zacatecas. The Academies, however, change several tidbits from time to time. See also Spanish orthography. Spanish orthography is one of the most phonemic among those that are written with the Latin alphabet.
Further languages
- In a 1948 reform, the Danish language abandoned the capitalization of nouns to make its orthography more distinct from German. Danish ( d̥ænsɡ̊ is one of the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the At the same time, the diphthong Aa/aa was abandoned in favour of the Swedish letter Å/å. The letter Å represents various sounds in the Swedish, Finnish (although no native Finnish words contain the letter å Danish, Norwegian The double-a diphthong is still widely used in personal names. In 1980, W was recognized as a distinct letter. W is the twenty-third letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled double-u (ˈdʌbljuː Before that, it was considered a variation of V and words were alphabetized accordingly. V is the twenty-second letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled vee or occasionally ve (viː
- The last major spelling reform of the Swedish language occurred in 1906. Swedish ( is a North Germanic language spoken by more than nine million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the Year 1906 ( MCMVI) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting It homogenised the spelling of /v/ and changed the adverbial and neuter adjectival ending -dt to -t or -tt depending on the length of the preceding vowel. The phrase hvarken af silfver eller rödt guld was now spelled varken av silver eller rött guld. Some debaters had called for an even more radical reform to homogenise also the spelling of the /j/, /ɕ/ and /ɧ/ sounds, which to this day remain highly diverse in Swedish. The so-called voiceless palatal-velar fricative (also called a voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, voiceless postalveolar and velar fricative, or voiceless
- History of Dutch orthography
- The Latvian language discarded the digraph Uo in 1914, the letter Ō in 1946, and the letters Ŗ and Ch in 1957. The History of Dutch Orthography covers the changes in spelling of Dutch both in the Netherlands itself and in the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in Latvian language (latviešu valoda is the official state language of Latvia.
- The Turkish alphabet replaced the Ottoman Turkish script in the Turkish language
- Spelling reform of the Armenian language 1922-1924
- Simplified Chinese character, the equivalent of spelling reform in Chinese, a language with a non-alphabetic script
- Filipino orthography
- The hangul alphabet replaced hanja in the Korean language
- In the Vietnamese language, the quốc ngữ script replaced the previous chữ nho and chữ nôm systems. The Turkish alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters a certain number of which ( Ç, The Ottoman Turkish alphabet (الفبا elifbâ) was the version of the Perso-Arabic alphabet that was used for the Ottoman Turkish language during the Turkish ( tr Türkçe IPA) is a language spoken by over 63 million people worldwide making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. The Spelling reform of the Armenian language 1922-1924 was a spelling reform of the Armenian alphabet conducted in the Armenian SSR. The Filipino alphabet (officially Makabagong alpabetong Filipino; English: Modern Filipino alphabet) is made up of 28 letters which includes the entire Hanja is the Korean name for Chinese characters. More specifically it refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system Vietnamese ( tiếng Việt, or less commonly Việt ngữ) formerly known under French colonization as Annamese ( see Annam) The Vietnamese alphabet has the following 29 letters in collating order Description The Vietnamese alphabet called Chữ Quốc Ngữ Hán tự ( {{IPA|/han˦˥ tɯ˨/}}; 漢[[wikt 字|字]] meaning " Chinese character " or chữ Nho ( {{IPA|/tɕɯ˧˨˧ ɲɔ/}} Chữ Nôm ( IPA: /cɨ3ˀ5 nom33/ chữ Nôm in Unicode: 字[[wikt 喃|喃]]/ 𡨸 喃/ 𡦂 喃 chữ Nôm in Unicode
See also Differences between standard Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian.
References
- István Fodor and Clause Hagège (eds): La Réforme des langues. Histoire et avenir. Language reform. History and future. Sprachreform. Geschichte und Zukunft. Buske, Hamburg 1983–1989
- Edite Estrela: A Questão Ortográfica: Reforma e Acordos da Língua Portuguesa. Editorial Notícias, Lisbon 1993
See also
External links
- The Simplified Spelling Society
- A brief history of spelling reform in Norway
- "Language Reform on the Kitchen Table," by John Maher, Professor of Linguistics at International Christian University in Tokyo
- Revolutionary Scripts: The Politics of Writing Systems, by Richard Oliver Collin, at Omniglot
- "The Standardization of Irish Spelling: an Overview", by Muiris Ó Laoire
- Writing Systems Reforms and Revolutions
- American Literacy Council
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