#spelling errors written to reflect spoken pronunciation

[whales-are-gay]

love when people pahk in the bike lane like thanks buddy youre right i guess i didnt need it let me ride my bike directly into your driverside door

[protoindoeuropean]

Wrt 3.: Multiple spellings to a single pronunciation are indeed a complete non-issue. People who bring up French spelling as an example of bad orthography don't understand this, because all of those multiple vowel-letter sequences are in fact perfectly fine and the only real problems with French orthography are in reverse – spelling to pronunciation, e.g. not indicating when final s is pronounced or when to pronounce ch as [k] instead of [ʃ] and similar. And that's the reason English is put on the spot, since (according to the link provided above) spelling predicts pronunciation 85% of the time. This alone is not the best, but it also states there that that's ignoring "minor errors", for example in vowel length prediction or, as mentioned, vowel reduction – which in English means quite major qualitative differences, not minor at all! (Stuff like wrongly assuming that the pronunciations of finite and infinite would be similar is the whole reason why English orthography is seen as irregular in the first place!). I don't understand how anyone could just sweep these under the rug as unimportant. And if you do take into account these minor errors, the prediction rate goes down to 59%. This is then not in the "not the best" territory anymore. I would say that that's bad, actually.

Wrt 4.: I don't really see etymological spelling as a factor, really. When etymological transparency does matter, that might affect the language through analogy or the like – in spoken language, that is. Hopefully, that would be reflected in the written language as well, but within the orthography itself I don't really see it being either good or bad.

I tend to view Latin recording the vowel reductions in writing as a good thing, for example, and much prefer that to them (potentially) introducing etymological spelling – not least because that would make it harder to describe the actual pronunciation of things, as is the problem with English speakers today using "phonetic" spellings to try and convey to one another what is actually said and failing because even those spellings are too often ambiguous. (see also *)

Wrt 5.: I would just note that many Latin-script based orthographies do not stick to the plain 26-letter system, so the options definitely are there, even if you don't go about making an entirely new script that would be tailor-made for English alone. (see also *)

Wrt 6.: I can definitely appreciate conservative orthographies being useful in this sense, though that might also give people the wrong impression that the language then was also pronounced the same way it is nowadays, but that's neither here nor there. In any case, however, as a historical linguist I must be ideologically opposed to this kind of conservativism because were it followed through perfectly, we would never know when any sound changes actually took place. People who disregard the principle of scribal convention in favour of (what they see as) phonetic writing are literally godsent! (see also *)

And additionally, it is this same favouring of tradition/conservativism in orthography that wreaks havoc in languages more generally when it comes to borrowings, so this is not just an issue of English. Unfortunately though, English is a major source of trouble here too: just think of how jungle or punch were borrowed into other languages (spoler alert: with [u]~[ʊ], even though that's not the sound represented by u in those words) or how in so many languages of the world, the name of the country Myanmar is written (and pronounced!) with a final r, even though this was just a way of rendering the sound [ɒ] in a non-rhotic dialect of English (RP in this case, presumably) (and Burma is even worse off).

*Of course the obvious benefit of an orthography with a rather tenuous connection with actual pronunciation is that it can accommodate very divergent pronunciations, which facilitates written communication among dialectally very different speech communities. Whether you prefer these dialect groups to tend to the same standard or that they diverge might inform your opinion on whether you want the same orthography to accommodate all of them or that they go their separate ways in written language as well, but that might not be the biggest factor, because it's not like orthography by itself will be the deciding factor in that. But this highly abstracted representation of divergent pronunciations (across many centuries, even!) also makes me wonder if (when) it will stop being considered a phonetic script – because I wouldn't say that "that's pretty good for a phonetic script", but rather that that's not really something you would expect of a phonetic script.

In any case, I don't really care about a potential English orthographic reform and I definitely agree that it's not viable. But I like a liberal approch to writing conventions more generally, not just in English, because the biggest obstacle to orthographic reform is people thinking about how language is supposed to be (written) and what's right and wrong and I don't like people thinking about language in these rigid terms. (And also I hate English interference in borrowings lol)

The actual reason we need a revolution is because it's the only way to ever get an English spelling reform done

You are wrong for six reasons:

English is an official language in 67 different countries. You will not successfully coordinate a revolution in 67 different countries.

The lack of an official English orthography is good, actually. Academie Francais-style attempts at language planning are cringe as hell, and often ineffective. They are not the product of sensible policy, they are the product of head-up-your-ass nationalism, and their decrees usually reflect that fact.

English spelling is fine. English orthography correctly predicts the sound of words in the vast majority of cases; where it fails, it's usually because a vowel isn't reduced quite enough. It's true that you can't really reverse pronunciation to get spelling, but in almost all orthographies there are multiple spellings to a single pronunciation.

Where English spelling is truly irregular, it's typically to preserve etymological transparency, which is actually a good thing in a writing system.

English orthography is complex, but it must be so: there are more phonemic consonants in English than there are consonant letters in the alphabet used to write it, and many more phonemic vowels than there are vowel letters. If this displeases you, take it up with the Romans and their shitty alphabet; it's not the fault of English.

English orthography is also conservative, but this is also a good thing: it means it's possible to read texts written in Early Modern English, and even in some forms of Middle English, with only moderate effort. If (for instance) we used a purely phonetic writing system, English of only 300 years ago would look very strange on the page, and English of 600 years ago would be nearly incomprehensible. As it stands, a fluent English speaker can read Shakespeare with only light editing, and can read Chaucer with the help of a few footnotes. That's pretty good for a phonetic script!

[jennzer]

Week 15: “How Do You Spell That?”

In the photo above, I have captured two times that my last name has been spelled incorrectly (hint: it starts with a W, not a B).  And those were minor errors compared to some of the Starbucks misspellings I’ve seen.  There are many reasons that a person’s name gets misspelled, and my ancestors weren’t immune to it.  So here are four of the most frustrating spelling issues I’ve encountered in my research.

Anna Maria Feldhaus (August 3, 1819 - June 24, 1900)

At a time when most people were poorly educated or completely illiterate, Anna probably didn’t worry too much about how to spell her last name.  In his marriage record, Anna’s father Johann Bernard is listed with the surname Feltes.  Anna’s baptismal entry spells her name Feldhues while the register for her own marriage records Anna's name as Feldhouse. Only the passenger list from her arrival to Baltimore lists her name with the spelling Feldhaus (the version I have arbitrarily chosen to prefer).  In Anna’s case, spelling variations reflect an emphasis on spoken pronunciation over written accuracy.  When other people needed to record her name, they probably used phonetics to help them capture it as precisely as possible without much concern for “correctness."  For the most part, Anna’s perpetually “misspelled" name has not impeded my genealogy research because the soundex code for her surname is always F-432.

John Earp (1680 - 1744)

In the case of the Earp family surname, phonetic spelling “mistakes" have actually made the research a little more difficult.  Earp historians note that the name had many different spelling variations over time.  Because John Earp’s father was a recent immigrant from Ireland, he probably spoke with a heavy accent.  If someone spelled the name phonetically based on John’s own accented pronunciation, it most likely would have been recorded as Harp or Arp (listen for yourself!).  In fact, in the 1701 Maryland Early Census, John’s last name was indeed recorded as Harp.  On both his birth record and his gravestone, however, he is identified as John Earp.  Other spellings found throughout the history of the Earp family tree include Erp, Urp, Erpe, Yrp, Earpe, Aerp, Arpe, Harpe, Yarp, and Erps.  All of which translate into many different soundex codes and complicate the process of finding records.

Brandenburg

I truly think that the biggest challenge when it comes to my Brandenburg ancestors is the length of their Germanic surname.  Most records I have studied spell out the entire surname, although occasionally I have seen a shortened Brand. or Brand'berg.  In general, I assume that the longer the name, the more likely it is misspelled.  Many records add an “h”, “er”, “e” or even “s” to my Brandenburg ancestors’ surname resulting in Brandenburge, Brandensburg, Brandenberger, and Brandenburgh to name a few.  It appears that they all generally come from the same origin and simply represent different (mostly unintentional) variations.  Once again, it helps that all the variations have the same soundex code (B-653).

Clara Rothert (January 4, 1834 - February 1, 1916)

Clara’s surname and all of its variations represent the mixed influence of phonetics, accents, mistakes, and anglicization.  The first record I have with Clara’s name is the passenger list showing her arrival at the port of Baltimore in October of 1848 with her father, Frederick Rothert, mother, and two brothers.  On the 1860 census, Clara is married to Edward Plümer and they are living and working on the farm of Frederick Road, her father.  When Clara’s eldest son, Frederick dies, his death certificate lists his mother’s maiden name as Rhode, and by the time I inherit my family’s family tree information, it has been changed to Roday.  I still don’t know which variation is the “right” one, but I’m partial to the name written on her immigration passenger list.

What misspellings do you have in your family tree?

Resources: 

Learn more about the Soundex Coding system for genealogy

My family tree with blog subjects highlighted