LL-L "Orthography" 2008.04.24 (02) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 24 April 2008 - Volume 02
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From: Tom Mc Rae <t.mcrae at uq.net.au>
Subject: LL-L Etymology English Spelling

The following article explains a great deal............
From DelanceyPlace.com –

[M]any of the reasons that English spelling contains many silent letters
and
other complexities date from the 15th century, around the time of William
Caxton's 1476 introduction of the printing press in England:

"In spelling, the [English] language was assimilating the consequences of
having a civil service of French scribes, who paid little attention to the
traditions of English spelling that had developed in Anglo-Saxon times. Not
only did French qu arrive, replacing Old English cw (as in queen), but ch
replaced c (in words such as church – Old English cirice), sh and sch
replaced sc (as in ship – Old English scip), and much more. Vowels were
written in a great number of ways. Much of the irregularity of modern
English spelling derives from the forcing together of Old English and
French
systems of spelling in the Middle Ages. People struggled to find the best
way of writing English throughout the period. . . . Even Caxton didn't
help,
at times. Some of his typesetters were Dutch, and they introduced some of
their own spelling conventions into their work. That is where the gh in
such
words as ghost comes from.

"Any desire to standardize would also have been hindered by the . . . Great
English Vowel Shift, [which] took place in the early 1400s. Before the
shift, a word like loud would have been pronounced 'lood;' name as 'nahm;'
leaf as 'layf;' mice as 'mees.' . . .

"The renewed interest in classical languages and cultures, which formed
part
of the ethos of the Renaissance, had introduced a new perspective into
spelling: etymology. Etymology is the study of the history of words, and
there was a widespread view that words should show their history in the way
they were spelled. These weren't classicists showing off. There was a
genuine belief that it would help people if they could 'see' the original
Latin in a Latin-derived English word. So someone added a b to the word
typically spelled det, dett, or dette in Middle English, because the source
in Latin was debitum, and it became debt, and caught on. Similarly, an o
was
added to peple, because it came from populum: we find both poeple and
people, before the latter became the norm. An s was added to ile and iland,
because of Latin insula, so we now have island. There are many more such
cases. Some people nowadays find it hard to understand why there are so
many
'silent letters' of this kind in English. It is because other people
thought
they were helping."

–David Crystal, The Fight for English: How language pundits ate, shot, and
left, Oxford, 2006, pp. 26-9

Regards

Tom Mc Rae

Brisbane Australia

Oh Wad Some Power the Giftie Gie Us

Tae See Oorsel's as Ithers See Us

Robert Burns
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