A SPELLING reform is trying to figure out how to make written English better reflect the way the language spoken.
The American Literacy Council (ALC), a spelling reform advocacy group, says words should be spelled the way they sound to help make learning to read quicker and spelling simpler, ELITES TV reported.
ALC, a Colorado-based organization, undertook a serious academic study of English spelling in the early 20th century. Council President Alan Mole says the English language would be less problematic, if spelling rules were changed.
"English has thousands of weird spellings, so learning in sound-spell (spelling as it sounds), instead, will be a great boon to them, and could make English so easy (to learn) that it becomes the true international language," he said.
Spelling reform advocates suggest two ways of modifying the written English language. ALC pushes for what it calls "sound-spell," which is writing out the word, as it sounds. Simplified Spelling Society, a London-based group, prefers what it calls "cut spelling," a technique, which leaves out unpronounced letters like the "k", which is the silent first letter in the word "knife", or the silent "b" in the word "subtle". Cut spelling also drops double consonants, so words like "spelling" would have one "l" instead of two.
But Denis Baron, a member of the Modern Language Association and Professor of Linguistics at the University of Indiana, US, says attempts to make written English correspond to spoken English will not work, because people speak with different accents, which give subtle changes to the sounds.
"The problem with arguing for phonetic spelling is whose phonetic are you going to choose to be the standard?" he asked. "Are you going to let people spell however they happen to pronounce a word? Is it potato poh-tae-toe or puh-tah-toe? Is it tomato toh-mae-toe or tomato tuh-mah-toe? And, will those have different spellings? And most people decide to call the whole thing off."
John Mayher, Linguistics Professor at New York University, says phonetic spelling is an appropriate transitional method for some children, but altering the spelling of certain words can change the meaning. He says reformists place too much emphasis on pronunciation, and too little on the meaning of words in context.
Spelling reformers say opponents are out of touch with changing language trends. Jack Bovill, chair of the Simplified Spelling Society, says the widespread use of phonetic spelling has already filtered into people's daily lives through e-mail and text messaging.
