Spelling in English: Our Unique, Eclectic, Idiosyncratic Mess

The United States novelist Mark Twain once asserted that “Anyone who can only think of one way to spell a word lacks imagination.” If this is the case, the history of spelling in the English language certainly attests to the copious creativity of its speakers!

The spelling system of the English language is infamous for its apparent anarchy. Albert Einstein once lamented about “the treacherous spelling” of the language, stating, “When I am reading, I only hear it and am unable to remember what the written word looks like.”

 

Anglophones may be inclined to wonder what lies beneath the chaotic surface of multigraphs, silent letters, and letters with various uses.

 

“The story of English spelling,” observed the British linguist David Crystal, “is the story of thousands of people – some well-known, most totally unknown – who left a permanent linguistic fingerprint on our orthography.” 

 

The story began during the Middle Ages, around the 8^th century, when Irish missionaries first attempted to adapt the Latin script to represent Old English, an early form of English.

History of Spelling in English: Old English

Old English, though internally diverse, was an insular language that had little contact with language varieties outside of its dialect continuum. Therefore, the purpose of spelling in Old English was to represent the language’s sounds in their diverse manifestations.

 

Generally, scribes represented Old English phonemes, distinctive units of sound, with Latin letters as illustrated in the following table. (I used the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to transcribe Old English phonemes. I will transcribe phonemes between slashes (/ /) and graphemes (symbols) between angular brackets (< >).)

 

N.B.: For those who do not spend five-hour-long “breaks” diving into bottomless rabbit holes on Wikipedia, I recommend reading the “Consonants” and “Vowels” sections of the “Articulatory Phonetics” section of the Encyclopædia Britannica’s “phonetics” page beforehand if you are still awake and interested in continuing to read my pretentiously elementary rambling.

 

Phoneme (IPA)	Symbol	Notes
/i(ː)/	<i>
/y(ː)/	<y>
/e(ː)/	<e>
/ø(ː)/	<œ>	In Latin, the ligature <œ>, derived by connecting o and e, originally represented the diphthong /oe̯/, which sometimes merged with the long vowel /eː/.
/æ(ː)/	<æ>	In Latin, the ligature <æ>, derived by connecting a and e, originally represented the diphthong /ae̯/, which could also be pronounced as a long vowel (/ɛː/).
/ɑ(ː)/	<a>	In Latin, <a> represented /a/.
/o(ː)/	<o>
/u(ː)/	<u>
/j/	<g>	In Latin, <g> represented /g/. Latin orthography did not distinguish /j/ from /i/, employing <i> for both. This was problematic for mediæval scribes, who consequently recurred to <g> to represent both /ɣ/ and /j/.
/w/	<ƿ>	In Latin, <v> represented /w/. However, since u and v were yet indistinct, mediæval scribes borrowed the runic letter wynn (<ƿ>) to represent /w/, thus distinguishing it from /u/.
/p/	<p>
/b/	<b>
/f/	<f>
/t/	<t>
/d/	<d>
/θ/	<ð>, <þ>	/θ/ did not exist in Latin. To represent this sound, some mediæval scribes derived a new letter, eth (<ð>), from d, whereas others borrowed the runic letter thorn (<þ>).
/k/	<k>
/x/	<h>	In Latin, <h> represented /h/.
/ɣ/	<g>	In Latin, <g> represented /g/, which did not exist in Old English. Mediæval scribes recurred to <g> to represent both /ɣ/, which did not exist in Latin, and /j/, which Latin orthography failed to distinguish from /i/.
/t͡ʃ/	<c>	In Latin, in which /t͡ʃ/ did not exist, <c> represented /k/.
/ʃ/	<sc>	/ʃ/ did not exist in Latin.
/s/	<s>
/l/	<l>
Rhotic phoneme (possibly /ɹ/, /ɾ/, or /r/)	<r>	In Latin, as in English, <r> represented the rhotic phoneme. Spelling vacillations in Old Latin inscriptions suggest that the Latin rhotic phoneme may have been /ɹ/ or /ɾ/ in Old Latin. In Classical Latin, it was /r/.
/n/	<n>
/m/	<m>

 

From the beginning, scribes struggled to adapt the Latin script to the sounds of English. They were compelled to alter the usage of the Latin ligatures <æ> and <œ>, and they failed to indicate vowel length or distinguish /g/ from /j/. 

History of Spelling in English: Drastic Changes

As the language evolved, drastic sound changes further complicated the task of writing. Moreover, after the Norman Conquest in the 11^th century, a massive influx of loanwords into the English lexicon necessitated an upheaval of the orthographic system.

 

The English language’s vowel system evolved considerably during the transition from Old English to Middle English. Old English mid vowels became close-mid in Middle English, and Middle English developed a contrast between open-mid and close-mid long vowels. Contiguously, Old English /ɑ/ and /æ/ merged into /a/, which scribes represented with <a>, as in Latin.

History of Spelling in English: Middle English

During the Middle English period, scribes distinguished long /eː/ and /oː/ from their short counterparts by duplicating vowel letters. Therefore, <ee> represented /eː/, and <oo> represented /oː/. They also developed the digraphs <ea> and <ie> to represent /ɛː/ (replacing the ligature <æ>), the digraph <oa> to represent /ɔː/, and (following Anglo-Norman convention) the digraphs <ou> and <ow> to represent /uː/. The last of these digraphs incorporates <w>, which emerged as a ligature derived from the digraph <uu> and replaced the runic letter wynn (<ƿ>), representing /w/.

 

In Old English, fricatives acquired voicing intervocalically unless they were geminated. During the transition to Middle English, as geminates simplified into single consonants, a contrast between intervocalic voiced and voiceless fricatives emerged. Subsequently, loanwords and phonological changes helped generalize the voicing contrast, which ultimately spread to all positions. Three new phonemes resulted from this development: /v, ð, z/. 

 

Scribes recurred to previously unused letters and digraphs to represent these phonemes: <v> for /v/, <th> for /ð/, and <z> for /z/. However, the disappearance of the runic letters thorn (<þ>) and eth (<ð>) compelled scribes to use <th> for /θ/ as well. As a result, English orthography does not distinguish /θ/ from /ð/.

 

Phonological changes resulted in phonemic splits between /j/ and /d͡ʒ/ and between /g/ and /ɣ/, and the Old English consonant cluster /xw/ coalesced into /ʍ/. Old English /x/ became /h/, and the rhotic phoneme, whose original realization is uncertain, became an approximant. 

 

To represent /ʍ/, scribes devised the digraph <wh>. Following Anglo-Norman convention, they represented /j/ with <y> and /d͡ʒ/ with <j>, which derives from <i>. 

 

The digraph <ch> replaced earlier <c>, which, following Anglo-Norman convention, came to represent /t͡s/. Contiguously, <sch> and <sh> replaced earlier <sc> to represent /ʃ/.

Etymological Spelling of Loanwords in English

The etymological spelling of loanwords further complicated the language’s orthographic system. Notably, Romance languages tended to represent Latin /g/ in spelling, regardless of its current pronunciation. As a result of palatalization in Late Vulgar Latin, /g/ had become /d͡ʒ/ when followed by /i/ or /e/ in Romance languages such as Old French. Romance orthographies also tended to represent Greek /y/, which had merged with /i/ in Vulgar Latin. As a result, <g> is often pronounced /d͡ʒ/ in Romance loanwords when it appears before <e>, <i>, or <y>. 

From Early Modern English to the Present

During the Early Modern English period, even more etymological spellings emerged. For instance, an etymological <b> appeared in words such as debt (from popular Latin *debita), doubt (from Old French doubter), and subtle (from French subtil). Today, the spelling system of Modern English largely reflects the conventions established during this stage.

Representation of Morphophonemes in Spelling

Throughout the ages, phonological changes have caused divergences in the phonemic realizations of morphemes. For example, the verbal suffix |-ᵻd| (spelled <-ed>) is pronounced /-t/ in cloaked, /-d/ in forayed, and /-ᵻd/ in hunted. Likewise, the underlying vowel |ɛː| (spelled <ea>) in the verb dream is pronounced /iː/ in dreams but /ɛ/ in dreamt. These morphophonological alternations do not cause difficulties to native speakers, who internalize the underlying patterns 

without noticing them.

Conclusion: Spelling in English is Hard for a Reason

Spelling in English is unpredictable because it requires careful knowledge of each word’s etymology. In the words of David Crystal, “The story of the English writing system is so intriguing, and the histories behind individual words so fascinating, that anyone who dares to treat spelling as an adventure will find the journey rewarding.” 

 

I am not so idealistic as to hope I have inspired you to embark on this fascinating journey, but perhaps, the next time you encounter a bizarre word in our bizarre language, you will wonder why it looks so funny.