LL-L "Orthography" 2003.09.21 (02) [E]

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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Orthography"

> From: jannie.lawn <jannie.lawn at ntlworld.com>
> Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2003.09.19 (08) [E]
>
> As usual in education, opinions come and go about which method to
> teach (in
> this case: reading) is best.  Many people, including myself, complement
> whole-word recognition with word-building skills, where children begin to
> build up words from phonemes.  We also teach them to deduct
> unfamiliar words
> from the surrounding text or illustrations.

In discussing English spelling in education, I think an important point is
often missed: that although English has two overlapping orthographies (one
for perceived Anglo-Saxon and one for perceived Romance), they only need to
be taught one at a time, since the perceived Romance words are in the
advanced vocabulary and don't need to be taught to infants. This means that
the problems in teaching English spelling aren't as difficult as many
accounts make out - a descriptive account of English spelling is much more
complex than a prescriptive course need ever be. With a solid foundation in
preceived Anglo-Saxon, learning the "other" spelling system involves little
beyond learning to spell a limited number of prefixes and suffixes,
eg -tion, dys-, dis-, un-. There are a few problematic areas, however, such
as -ability/-ibility and words with the ex- prefix. These might be areas
worth focusing on for simplification.

I think this means that whole-word and word-building strategies are both
important in English literacy: while many perceived Anglo-Saxon words may be
recognised as a whole, Romance vocabulary is more mutable and should benefit
from word-building skills.

As I said before, I'm familiar with the orthographic arguments with respect
to English on the list and one of the arguments that crops up is that
English is an international lingua franca these days and people who don't
have English as a first language are disadvantaged by the double spelling
system. I disagree for two reasons. One is that if a school wants its pupils
to have English for international use they must be committed to educating
every student in English over a period of years - thus there should be
plenty of room to implement the two-phase education in spelling. The other
is that while you may object that Romance spellings introduce complexity
into the orthography, this may be actually the correct way to go about it
for an international language, since English retains as much as possible of
the original Latin spellings, which should make those words recognisable to
a large number of non-English speakers, since some other major languages
also retain the Latinate flavour of their spellings.

> Next quote:
> Here in the UK people's spelling is often atrocious, and I have
> noticed that
> this often holds true for teachers as well as present and former pupils.
> (Should I feel offended, or should my excuse be that I am a Dutch
> teacher in
> an English school?  I have recently stated in an emailed response to a job
> advert, where they wanted a 'native English speaker' that foreigners often
> speak better English than native English speakers...)
> But seriously, I haven't noticed it, and I have worked in English schools
> for many years now.  One thing I do know, and that is that
> British teachers,
> even when they instinctively speak correct English, sometimes
> don't know the
> rules and 'reasons why'.  I asked two of my colleagues once what the
> difference is between 'small' and 'little', and they couldn't tell me.

I'm inclined to agree that the problems with "atrocious" English spelling is
wildly exaggerated. I think various selection processes are involved. In the
UK you sometimes hear people saying that you never see a spelling mistake in
Spanish. Well, the average British holidaymaker couldn't spot a spelling
mistake in Spanish to save their lives! Of course, more proficient linguists
do say this sort of thing, but so many people are so familiar with written
English that there is bound to be an automatic bias against English.

I've heard people on this list saying that they don't see spelling mistakes
in French. This mystifies me because one of the most amusing things I saw on
my first visit to France was the spelling mistakes in notices in shop
windows, especially with respect to badly-parsed liaision. It was amusing
because, you know, because we just weren't _allowed_ to do any of that in my
Scottish school! It seems to me that there must be some kind of selection
process here as well - perhaps I'm the only visitor to France who enjoys
reading signs written by small shopkeepers!

There has been some nonsense written about comparative orthography on the
list. Quoting from memory:

"Second to Finnish, Czezh is probably the most phonemic spelling system in
Europe."

"Icelandic has a highly phonemic orthography."

I think the people who say this sort of thing are making the same mistake as
the judges who chose Shavian as the best English reform system: they're
impressed by the structure of the orthography, but aren't really looking at
how it works in practice.

In the case of Icelandic, the fact that the /D/ and /T/ sounds are
distinguished in the spelling, and that some vowels have distinguishing
diacritics, may be giving the impression that everything is precisely
spelled. If you compare how a modern Icelander speaks with how the language
is written, however, you should soon realise that the spoken language has
undergone considerable change since the orthography was derived!

In the case of Czech, the orthographic system is certainly impressive to
someone who doesn't know the language too well. I have spotted spelling
mistakes in Czech - u-acute/u-circle confusion seems to occur in particular.
The case of Czech brings us on to another popular myth - the idea that in
most languages other than English you can spell a word correctly if you know
how it's pronounced. This may be true for people who are familiar with the
language, but I don't think it's usually true for learners. For example, one
woman in Prague used a word sounding like "fscootkoo" outside of any other
context with me. I couldn't think what it meant and I still haven't been
able to figure it out so I may have misheard her! I think I can write it
down, though - it's probably "v zkutku". However, it takes some knowledge of
Czech grammar and vocabulary to separate out the "s" and change it to "v"
while knowing not to separate the "s", and why I feel it's "z" rather than
"s" I'm not sure. Czech is full of devoicings, and some voicings, that
aren't reflected in the spelling, but don't seem a problem to those who are
schooled in the language.

This idea that an intimate knowledge of the structure of a language makes
the orthography seem simple is particularly highlighted in the case of
Welsh, where much to the dismay of all learners, initial consonant mutations
make it very difficult to find many words in the dictionary even when the
spelling is there before them in their text. Those who are familiar with the
language, however, can't see any problem: their intimate knowledge of
grammar, the mutation system and vocabulary makes it possible for them to
see the root mutation of any word without having to think about it.

As for the best spelling system in Europe? Well, I don't know all that many
spelling systems but of those I know I would suggest Welsh. In spite of the
superficially obvious precision of Finnish orthography it wouldn't surprise
me if Welsh as reflected by its orthography fits the various dialects of
Welsh more closely than written Finnish reflects Finnish dialects outside of
the schools - unless things have gone full circle and now all Finns elect to
speak just as they write. I do see spelling mistakes in Welsh, however. One
fundamental flaw is that "r" and "n" may or may not be doubled in certain
places (whereas otherwise in Welsh nothing's doubled except in constructing
digraphs). This is purely historical and is a common source of spelling
errors (one reason why such a simple thing can casue problems, I suppose, is
that Welsh speakers don't _expect_ spelling to vary from pronunciation, like
English speakers do!). Another is that those who speak southern dialects can
have difficulty in deciding whether to write "i", "u" or "y". However, these
sounds are destinguished in northern dialects, so this is a spelling problem
that serves to unify the language and illustrates how a perfectly phonemic
spelling system could be inferior to something a little more difficult! So I
do see spelling errors in Welsh, but only in the case of doubled "n" and "r"
is there a need for orthographic revision, ie, the occurrence of spelling
errors in a language doesn't in itself make a case for orthographic
revision.

As for "atrocious", which is a prude's approved adjective for English text
with spelling errors, I think that this is nothing but snobbery. The usual
argument that your spelling reflects your education may be true, but it's
not the only yardstick, and certainly not the most important. As a software
team leader I abolished criticism of programmers' spellings (because of the
time consumed in correcting these) and while this inevitably lead to some
spelling mistakes in documentation I never had a customer complain about
spelling in a document that was technically accomplished. They probably
realised that perfect documentation would cost more! It depends - if I had
been producing glossy leaflets for marketing or a professional typing pool
then the extra time spent in correcting spellings might pay for itself, but
much of the time spelling errors are of no consequence and shouldn't be
treated as some sort of holy grail (I've seen it, but it was only an
imperfect vision :)

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

----------

From: John Duckworth <jcduckworth2003 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Orthography

Jannie Lawn-Zijlstra wrote:

"I have recently stated in an emailed response to a job advert, where they
wanted a 'native English speaker' that foreigners often speak better English
than native English speakers...".

You may have been stating this tongue-in-cheek, but I really think you had a
point.Foreigners whose native language is not English often have
(understandable) problems with our spelling, but are often flawless in their
grammar, and even their pronunciation and choice of vocabulary is noticeable
for its excellence.

I am perhaps stirring up a hornets nest here, but even local 'foreigners'
from the Celtic fringes of our country (Scotland, Wales and Ireland)
sometimes exhibit much more mastery of the language than native Englishmen.
A good deal of English's literary heritage was penned by great Irishmen, and
the Welshman Dylan Thomas demonstrated the genius of his countrymen when it
comes to words.

We English are all too ready to denigrate the English of the Americans, yet
I never fail to be surprised at their good spelling and grammatical and
stylistic expertise in the language. I would say the same about the
Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans I have met.

In Urdu there is a proverb _ghar kii murghii Dal barabar_, i.e. 'The chicken
(cooked at) home is the same as lentils'. I suspect that there is an element
of this philosophy in the attitude of the English masses: we are English, so
we know the language whether we study it or not. We don't need to put any
effort into it.' I suppose it is even true in some ways; each of us can
speak more or less as he pleases, using his local dialect, and everybody is
expected to accept that and understand us. The problem arises when that same
individual is unable to express himself properly in written prose.

 It is a good thing, of course, that schools and the media now follow a
policy of accepting dialect and local accents, but they only really changed
their policy when many dialect had already become seriously moribund.In
places where dialect use is still strong, like Germany and Austria, people
seem, however, to make more efforts to learn their national standard
languages.

By the way, Jannie, I don't know if you got a reply to your question about
the words 'little' and 'small', but I would like to attempt a reply to it.
Firstly, in many cases they are interchangeable. Secondly, small is used
when referring to relative size: small implies being of limited dimensions
when compared to the norm or the majority of the objects being described, or
it may be that the thing described is limited in force or magnitude. Little
is a somewhat more emotive (expressing pettiness or immaturity), and more
absolute word that doesn't imply that you are comparing this object to
another. It can sometimes also be almost metaphorical.

Thus you say that 'he is a small man', when you are comparing his size to
that of others you know. When you say 'he is a little man', you would
probably be speaking of his lack of importance or standing. 'The small baby'
is factual, comparing the size to that of other babies, while 'The little
baby' may be more emotional, i.e. 'the cutely diminutive baby'! 'On the
other hand it could just be a matter-of-fact description, almost added for
euphony (since all babies are little). 'The little boy' is a similar case,
boys are by definition little, and if it is our intention to describe his
size we could say: 'the small boy', or to describe his age: 'the young boy'.
'Small is beautiful', where 'small' indicates relative size, but we don't
say: 'little is beautiful', because that could imply lack of status or
importance, or it could indicate paucity.

I hope this answers your question to some extent, but you really have picked
on a tricky point that demands dollops of Sprachgefuel to grasp.

Groeten,

John

Preston, UK.

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