Seldom have controversies brought out so much humor, on both sides, as
that over the reform of English spelling, and few have excited so little
interest in proportion to the energy expended. Both these results are
due perhaps to the fact that the subject, from its very nature, does not
admit of being made a burning question. Yet one has to look only a
little way into it to see that important interests--educational,
commercial, and possibly racial--are involved. Thus far the champions
have been chiefly the newspapers for spelling as it is, and scholars and
educators for spelling as it ought to be. But, in spite of the
intelligence of the disputants, the discussion has been singularly
insular and deficient in perspective. It would gain greatly in
conclusiveness if spelling and its modifications were considered broadly
and historically, not as peculiar to English, but as common to all
languages, and involving common problems, which we are not the first to
grapple with, but rather seem destined to be the last to solve.
As is usually the case in controversies, the chief obstacle to agreement
is a lack of what the lawyers call a meeting of minds. The two sides are
not talking about the same thing. The reformer has one idea of what
spelling is; the public has another idea, which is so different that it
robs the reformer's arguments of nearly all their force. The two ideas
for which the same word is used are hardly more alike than mother of
pearl and mother of vinegar. To the philologist spelling is the
application of an alphabet to the words of a language, and an alphabet
is merely a system of visible signs adapted to translate to the eye the
sounds which make up the speech of the people. To the public spelling is
part and parcel of the English language, and to tamper with it is to lay
violent hands on the sacred ark of English literature. To the
philologist an alphabet is not a thing in itself, but only a medium, and
he knows many alphabets of all degrees of excellence. Among the latest
formed is that which we use and call the Roman, but which, though it was
taken from Italy, made its way back after a course of form development
that carried it through Ireland, England, and Germany. This alphabet was
originally designed for writing Latin, and, as English has more sounds
than Latin, some of the symbols when applied to English have to do
multiple duty; though this is the least of the complaints against our
current spelling. In fact any inventive student of phonetics could in
half an hour devise a better alphabet for English, and scores have been
devised. But the Roman has the field, and no one dreams of advocating a
new alphabet for popular use. Meanwhile, though the earliest English may
have been written in Runic, and the Bibles which our Pilgrim fathers
brought over were printed in Black-letter, still to the great
English-reading public the alphabet of current books and papers is the
only alphabet. Even this is a double alphabet, consisting as it does of
capitals and small letters; and we have besides Italic, Black-letter,
and Script, all in common use, all with double forms, and all differing
greatly from one another. At best the Roman alphabet, though beautiful
and practical, is not so beautiful as the Greek nor nearly so efficient
for representing English sounds as the Cherokee syllabary invented by
the half-breed, Sequoyah, is for representing the sounds of his mother
tongue.
Let us now turn from the alphabet, which is the foundation of spelling,
to spelling itself. Given a scientific alphabet, spelling, as a problem,
vanishes; for there is only one possible spelling for any spoken word,
and only one possible pronunciation for any written word. Both are
perfectly easy, for there is no choice, and no one who knows the
alphabet can make a mistake in either. But given a traditional alphabet
encumbered with outgrown or impracticable or blundering associations,
and spelling may become so difficult as to serve for a test or hallmark
of scholarship. In French, for instance, the alphabet has drifted so far
from its moorings that no one on hearing a new word spoken, if it
contains certain sounds, can be sure of its spelling; though every one
on seeing a new word written knows how to pronounce it. But in English
our alphabet has actually parted the cable which held it to speech, and
we know neither how to write a new word when we hear it nor how to
pronounce one when we see it. Strangest of all, we have come, in our
English insularity, to look on this as a matter of course. But Germans
and Spaniards, Italians and Dutchmen, have no such difficulty and never
have to turn to the dictionary to find out how to spell a word that they
hear or how to pronounce a word that they see. For them spelling and
speech are identical; all they have to make sure of is the standard
pronunciation. They have done what we have neglected to do--developed
the alphabet into an accurate phonetic instrument, and our neglect is
costing us, throughout the English-speaking world, merely in dealing
with silent letters, the incredible sum of a hundred million dollars a
year.[5] Our neighbors look after the alphabet and the spelling looks
after itself; if the pronunciation changes, the spelling changes
automatically, and thus keeps itself always up to date.
But this happy result has not been brought about without effort, the
same kind of effort that our reformers are now making for our benefit.
In Swedish books printed only a hundred years ago we find words printed
with the letters _th_ in combination, like the word _them_, which had
the same meaning, and originally the same pronunciation, as the English
word. At that time, however, Swedes had long ceased to be able to
pronounce the _th_, but they kept the letters just as we still keep the
_gh_ in _brought_ and _through_, though for centuries no one who speaks
only standard English has been able to sound this guttural. In the last
century the Swedes reformed their spelling, and they now write the word
as they pronounce it--_dem_. German spelling has passed through several
stages of reform in recent decades and is now almost perfectly phonetic.
Germans now write _Brot_ and no longer _Brod_ or _Brodt_. It must be
frankly confessed that the derivation of some words is not so obvious to
the eye as formerly. The appearance of the Swedish _byrå_ does not at
once suggest the French _bureau_, which it exactly reproduces in sound.
But Europeans think it more practical, if they cannot indicate both
pronunciation and etymology in spelling, to relegate the less important
to the dictionary. Much, to be sure, has been made of the assumed
necessity of preserving the pedigree of our words in their spelling, but
in many cases this is not done now. Who thinks of _alms_ and
_eleemosynary_ as coming from the same Greek word? Scholars say that a
complete phonetic spelling of English would actually restore to the eye
as much etymology as it took away.
But the most deep-seated opposition to changing our current spelling
arises from its association, almost identification, with English
literature. If this objection were valid it would be final, for
literature is the highest use of language, and if reformed spelling
means the loss of our literature we should be foolish to submit to it.
But at what point in the history of English literature would reformed
spelling begin to work harm? Hardly before Shakespeare, for the spelling
of Chaucer belongs to the grammatical stage of the language at which he
wrote, and Spenser's spelling is more or less an imitation of it made
with a literary purpose. Shakespeare and Milton, however, wrote
substantially modern English, and they are therefore at the mercy of the
spelling reformer--as they always have been. The truth is, Shakespeare's
writings have been respelt by every generation that has reprinted them,
and the modern spelling reformer would leave them at least as near to
Shakespeare's spelling as our current spelling is. The poet himself made
fun of his contemporaries who said _det_ instead of _debt_, but what
would he say of us who continue to write the word _debt_, though it has
not been so pronounced for three hundred years? In old editions (and how
fast editions grow old!) antiquated spelling is no objection, it is
rather an attraction; but new, popular editions of the classics will be
issued in contemporary spelling so long as the preservation of metre and
rhyme permit. We still occasionally turn to the first folio of
Shakespeare and to the original editions of Milton's poems to enjoy
their antique flavor, and, in the latter case, to commune not only with
a great poet, but also with a vigorous spelling reformer. Thus, whatever
changes come over our spelling, standard old editions will continue to
be prized and new editions to be in demand. But for the most part,
though we might not readily understand the actual speech of Shakespeare
and Milton, could we hear it, we like to treat them as contemporaries
and read their works in our everyday spelling.
Our libraries, under spelling reform, will become antiquated, but only a
little faster than they are now doing and always have done. Readers who
care for a book over ten years old are few in number and will not mind
antiquated spelling in the future any more than they do now. The
printer, therefore, must not flatter himself with the prospect of a
speedy reprinting of all the English classics in the new spelling.
English is certain to have some day as scientific a spelling as German,
but the change will be spread over decades and will be too gradual to
affect business appreciably. On the other hand, he need not fear any
loss to himself in the public's gain of the annual hundred million
dollar tax which it now pays for the luxury of superfluous letters. Our
printer's bills in the future will be as large as at present, but we
shall get more for our money.
It will indeed be to the English race a strange world in which the
spelling book ends with the alphabet; in which there is no conflict of
standards except as regards pronunciation; in which two years of a
child's school life are rescued from the needless and applied to the
useful; in which the stenographer has to learn not two systems of
spelling, but only two alphabets; in which the simplicity and directness
of the English language, which fit it to become a world language, will
not be defeated by a spelling that equals the difficulty of German
grammar; in which the blundering of Dutch printers, like _school_, false
etymologies, like _rhyme_, and French garnishes, as in _tongue_, no
longer make the judicious grieve; and in which the fatal gift of bad
spelling, which often accompanies genius, will no longer be dependent
upon the printer to hide its orthographic nakedness from a public which,
if it cannot always spell correctly itself, can always be trusted to
detect and ridicule bad spelling. But it is a world which the English
race will some day have, and which we may begin to have here and now if
we will.