LL-L "Orthography" 2002.04.21 (03) [E]

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From: "John M. Tait" <jmtait at wirhoose.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2002.04.20 (03) [E]

Sandy wrote:
>
>Only last week I might have objected to the idea of
>continuously changing spellings, but by some fortuitious
>circumstance I was reading the original text of Mary
>Shelley's "Frankenstein" and was impressed by how different
>some of her spellings were from modern spellings and how
>little it seems to matter if a writer occasionally uses
>his own spelling variants (without missing the snobbery
>involved here - Mary Shelley [pennyless, choaked] or Jane
>Austen [Swisserland, ridicule] use these spellings and
>editors preserve them reverently - if I did it, it would
>be ignorance!).

The main objection to continuous spelling reform in English, of course,
is that texts are constantly becoming out of date. For an example, look
at Norway. However, this isn't a problem in the case of Scots, where
texts already have a large range of spellings. However, I still believe
that it would be advisable to come to a fairly regular agreement over
spelling before any extensive printing in a particular language were to
be done for schools. Again, it could be claimed that this doesn't apply
in the case of Scots, because such a printing programme is unlikely to
happen (and those who have obtained grants for producing material for
schools certainly aren't going to listen to any suggestions like this.)
But that could be a circular argument?

I think it is possible for the likes of ourselves (and even more so
academics who spend their lives reading texts in all sorts of spellings)
to underestimate just how offensive some people find unusual spellings.
I knew an Icelander who simply could not bear to read texts from the era
in Icelandic literature when it was acceptable to write <je> instead of
<é>. She also couldn’t bear to read Faroese. I know someone else who
cannot bear to read Scots in any form, even though she speaks it
fluently. The unusual spellings literally ‘gar her grue’ almost as if
she had discovered some disgusting substance on the pages of her book. I
suspect that this sort of reaction is quite common, and the implication
is that wide acceptance for a written language among non-linguistic,
non-literary people (ie, most people) can only be achieved through a
very regular spelling which is taught from primary one.
>
>I was particularly interested in the first stage of reform
>proposed on the site, which is "Ugh-Free" spelling (ie
>spelling of English without "gh"). Instead of devising
>rules for determining these spellings, he looks for
>"prototype" spellings that already exist in the langage
>(I'd call these "precedents" for accuracy, but I suppose
>"prototyping" has a more modern appeal), eg:
>
>ughish examples         ugh-free prototypes
>===============         ===================
>rough, tough            buff, cuff
>cough, trough           off, scoff
>though, borough         go, no; doe, floe
>through                 flu, gnu
>plough, bough           how, cow
>thought, bought         taut, astronaut
>caught, aught           taut, astronaut
>draught                 draft, raft
>
>Except for occasional homophone clashes such as "weight" ->
>"Wait"(which ultimately don't matter) this more or less
>guarantees spellings which even adults will begin to accept,
>because it involves learning no new rules. It even helps
>(except in certain cases) to overcome the problem of
>dialectical pronunciations, since no matter whether it
>"works" with a person's own dialect, they're already used
>to the prototypes.

This is more or less what I have often called the 'principle of analogy'
- which would, for example, dictate 'maiter' (cp. waiter) rather than
'maitter'. To most Scots writers this is an irrelevance - it’s more
important to retain the <tt> that we’re familiar with in English, for
reasons of recognisability. To some Scots enthusiasts, <waiter> is an
English spelling anyway so why should we copy it? To the rest, spelling
is an irrelevance.
>
>One could even envisage individual writers taking the initiative
>and implementing one or two reforms in their own writing (which
>in fact does happen to a small but quite significant extent with
>American writers in English).
>
>When it comes to Scots spelling the problems are not nearly
>so trivial as eradicating historical silent letters and other
>irregularities: we first have the much bigger problem of
>getting rid of purely English copycat spellings. The idea of
>copycat spellings - that is, just indolently using the
>available English spelling when the Scots and Scottish English
>pronunciations are identical - is often put forward as a
>spelling principle in Scots, but I think this would have to be
>abandoned before we could even embark upon a programme of
>continuous spelling reform in Scots.

The idea of this type of spelling (an example might be 'tung') was the
thing that established institutions such as the SNDA objected to most
about the Spelling Committee spellings - in spite of the fact that the
Spelling Committee actually didn't do much of this! The SNDA just
assumed that, since the Committee was made up of the sort of people they
regard as ‘purists’, it is the sort of thing they would do!

It is true, however, that as long as you accept illogical (as opposed to
etymological) spellings  - eg: door, tongue - just because they are
English, you are spelling Scots as a dialect.
>
>However, expunging copycat spellings could be taken as a first
>step - or more likely it could itself be broken down into
>stages. This has been happening - "night", "thought" &c has
>been successfully replaced with "nicht", "thocht" by all but
>the least enlightened of Scots writers, and English-influenced
>apostrophes are well on the way out. We could now make it our
>concern to map out what _else_ should be adopted by writers.
>
>For example, we could put as the first stage the fact that
>writers should endeavour to use "y" rather than "i" in writing
>the long and short diphthongs in Scots. Before trying to make
>a rule for distinguishing the long and short diphthongs we try
>to find prototypes:

This is where the problems start. Who says that the <i-e> spelling is a
copycat spelling? Why not adopt this and abandon the <y-e> spelling? Or
use both, one for the long and one for the short diphthong, as RWS
recommends? (I know about the SVLR, but most people who come up with
suggestions for spelling Scots don’t.) Moreover, who's to say there's
anything wrong with having more than one spelling for the same phoneme?
Who's going to agree about this?

What is the criterion - is it that there should be only one spelling for
each phoneme? If not, then both <i-e> and <y-e> are transparent as
regards pronunciation (assuming the SVLR). It's only <i> alone = [@I],
in words like _mind_ that's problematic. If, therefore, you adopt <y> in
these positions - e.g. mynd, kynd - then the problem is solved.  Or
<minde>, but there’s no precedent for that. Moreover, if you really want
one spelling for each phoneme, then you want <(w)ryt, mynd, fyv> etc. -
the following -e is redundant. If this isn't a criterion, then why
outlaw <i-e> when you already have two spellings: <y> and <y-e>?

I can see how spellings like <tongue>, <door> are copycat spellings, but
I can't see why <i-e> shouldn't be regarded as as much a Scots as an
English spelling, as long as it has a regular pronunciation.
>
>i-ish               i-free prototypes
>=====               =================
>write, bite         wyte
>file, mile, stile   wyle, style
>five                belyve
>nine, fine, line    ??? (or is "tyne" a good prototype?)

Or: wite, wile, stile, belive, tine? It’s easier to find analogies if
you take <i-e> as the default spelling.

(On the other hand - what would be wrong with _tyne_ as a prototype?)
>
>Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to go so smoothly in Scots
>as in English, because the prototypes themselves don't seem
>to be very regular. However, the SVLR can save us here - the
>"y" in "belyve" is long because the SVLR says it should
>(normally) be long before a "v". Hence we could write "fyve"
>from the prototype, without having to introduce new rules
>(such as adding an "e" only for short diphthongs) which would
>oblige writers to provide a spelling crib even for experienced
>readers of Scots.
>
>What about cases where we can't find a good prototype? Since
>the reason for using prototypes is to ensure that the
>orthography remains recognisable to adults, I would suggest
>that we accept the particular spelling "-ine" for /@in/ as
>completely regular is Scots (which it is, if we can't find
>prototypes!) and leave the complete regularisation to later
>stages in the programme. Alternatively we could look for
>specific prototypes in authors with more radical spellings -
>however, even if we did this, I'd suggest sticking with
>authors of works that are both important and widely
>available - Lorimer and Burns are the only cases that
>spring to mind.
>
>While, as you might realise, I would prefer a radical
>spelling system myself, this way of doing it does have
>the advantage of making spelling reform _possible_! It
>transfers some power to individual writers and publishers
>instead of leaving it all up to academics, educators and
>lexicographers. But it's different from previous attempts
>at reforming Scots in that it neither attempts to create
>new rules, nor attempts to implement everything at once.
>Nor is it important to get absolutely everything right,
>as change is part of the principle, so mistakes can be
>corrected - they only slow things down a bit.

I think these are all good principles - except that, as I say, spelling
reform would have to stop sometime. The other problem is - how do you
get anyone to agree on which principles are to be followed in reforming
spelling? In other words, what IS spelling reform? What are you aiming
at? I, for example, would maintain that there is no need to have either
<y-e> or <i-e> - you can have both, as long as their pronunciation is
transparent - but that it is a disadvantage to have e.g. <mind>, where
the pronunciation could be either [m at In(d)] or *[mIn(d)]. Who will
decide what the primary criteria are?

Another problem. If you regularise, e.g. <mynd> [m at Ind], <wind> [wInd],
you still have the problem of ensuring that readers pronounce e.g. Scots
<wInd>, in the sense of to wind up a clock, with the Scots pronunciation
of [wIn(d)], and not the English (SSE) pronunciation of [w at Ind]. You can
do this in, e.g. a primer, where you stipulate at the start how your
spellings are pronounced, but how do you do it when writing Scots for
magazines, when you know filterable (a new net euphemism! - perhaps a
new ‘f’ word?) well that the people you hope are going to read your work
haven’t been reading your primer? (This has been a particular problem
for playwrights, who find that actors simply mispronounce their work.)

John M. Tait.

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