English spelling and pronunciation is different
Why is English spelling and pronunciation different?
Why is English spelling and pronunciation different?
-
Giselberga
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Sat Mar 10, 2018 7:45 pm
- Languages: Korean(N), english(A2), icelandic(beginner), russian(beginner)
- x 1
-
Dragon27
- Blue Belt
- Posts: 620
- Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2015 6:40 am
- Languages: Russian (N)
English - best foreign language
Polish, Spanish - passive advanced
Tatar, German, French, Greek - studying - x 1386
Re: Why is English spelling and pronunciation different?
There are lots of reasons. Mostly, historical ones. Gradual changes in pronunciation (with lack of corresponding change in spelling) like the Great Vowel Shift, introduction of many loan words with their own spelling (one of the most drastic changes was effected by Norman Conquest and slow merging of English language with Norman French), lack of official regulating authority, standardizing spelling (like in Spanish, French or German), and many others small influences. You can just read a wiki page on English orthography.
The problem with English orthography should be more accurately described as highly irregular and complex spelling, which forces you to memorize everything like some kind of hieroglyphs. If the spelling and pronunciation were different, but there were reliable rules to confidently convert one into the other - there would be no problem.
The problem with English orthography should be more accurately described as highly irregular and complex spelling, which forces you to memorize everything like some kind of hieroglyphs. If the spelling and pronunciation were different, but there were reliable rules to confidently convert one into the other - there would be no problem.
Last edited by Dragon27 on Sun Mar 25, 2018 8:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
6 x
-
reineke
- Black Belt - 3rd Dan
- Posts: 3570
- Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:34 pm
- Languages: Fox (C4)
- Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6979
- x 6554
Re: Why is English spelling and pronunciation different?
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthography
When the English tongue we speak.
Why is break not rhymed with freak?
Will you tell me why it's true
We say sew but likewise few?
And the maker of the verse,
Cannot rhyme his horse with worse?
Beard is not the same as heard
Cord is different from word.
Cow is cow but low is low
Shoe is never rhymed with foe.
Think of hose, dose,and lose
And think of goose and yet with choose
Think of comb, tomb and bomb,
Doll and roll or home and some.
Since pay is rhymed with say
Why not paid with said I pray?
Think of blood, food and good.
Mould is not pronounced like could.
Wherefore done, but gone and lone -
Is there any reason known?
To sum up all, it seems to me
Sound and letters don't agree.
....
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
...
A Dreadful Language
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, tough and through;
Well done! And how you wish perhaps
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead; it's said like bed, not bead
For goodness sake don't call it "deed".
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt)
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose
Just look them up and goose and choose,
And cork and work and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart.
Come, come I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful language? Man alive
I mastered it when I was five.
When the English tongue we speak.
Why is break not rhymed with freak?
Will you tell me why it's true
We say sew but likewise few?
And the maker of the verse,
Cannot rhyme his horse with worse?
Beard is not the same as heard
Cord is different from word.
Cow is cow but low is low
Shoe is never rhymed with foe.
Think of hose, dose,and lose
And think of goose and yet with choose
Think of comb, tomb and bomb,
Doll and roll or home and some.
Since pay is rhymed with say
Why not paid with said I pray?
Think of blood, food and good.
Mould is not pronounced like could.
Wherefore done, but gone and lone -
Is there any reason known?
To sum up all, it seems to me
Sound and letters don't agree.
....
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
...
A Dreadful Language
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, tough and through;
Well done! And how you wish perhaps
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead; it's said like bed, not bead
For goodness sake don't call it "deed".
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt)
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose
Just look them up and goose and choose,
And cork and work and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart.
Come, come I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful language? Man alive
I mastered it when I was five.
4 x
-
Decidida
- Green Belt
- Posts: 269
- Joined: Fri Jan 05, 2018 12:58 pm
- Location: Couch-hopping Covid Refugee
- Languages: English (N), Spanish (sidelined), Haitian Creole (beginner), Latin (forgotten), Ancient Greek (sidelined)
- x 399
Re: Why is English spelling and pronunciation different?
I have taught English phonics to some remedial and ESL students. My favorite resource is Alpha-Phonics REVISED or the smaller and cheaper version Phonics for Success. I always buy my copies of Phonics for Success from the seller RemnantMan at Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Phonics-Success- ... 1495144216
You can get a free pdf copy of the Alpha-Phonics version if you sign up at this website.
http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net
The author teaches the book for free on youtube. Lesson 1 starts about 17 minutes into the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q43_T8lbors
I strongly recommend the REVISED version when buying the Alpha-Phonics version. Most homeschoolers are using the original Italic version as the main seller of that version has flooded the market with it and engaged in some misleading advertising. Use the version that does NOT have an italic font, or just use the free pdf or Phonics for Success version at the links above.
https://www.amazon.com/Phonics-Success- ... 1495144216
You can get a free pdf copy of the Alpha-Phonics version if you sign up at this website.
http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net
The author teaches the book for free on youtube. Lesson 1 starts about 17 minutes into the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q43_T8lbors
I strongly recommend the REVISED version when buying the Alpha-Phonics version. Most homeschoolers are using the original Italic version as the main seller of that version has flooded the market with it and engaged in some misleading advertising. Use the version that does NOT have an italic font, or just use the free pdf or Phonics for Success version at the links above.
1 x
-
Cainntear
- Black Belt - 3rd Dan
- Posts: 3532
- Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:04 am
- Location: Scotland
- Languages: English(N)
Advanced: French,Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Intermediate: Italian, Catalan, Corsican
Basic: Welsh
Dabbling: Polish, Russian etc - x 8809
- Contact:
Re: Why is English spelling and pronunciation different?
It's essentially because teachers and editors don't understand what the dictionary was invented for.
The Oxford English Dictionary was intended as a catalogue of observed language, not a reference of "correct" forms. Words collected in different regions had different spelling conventions and different sound-letter correspondences. Anyone using the OED headwords as "correct" or "preferred" forms was therefore using a hodge-podge of writing styles from different dialects. This was bad enough in the early days, but the language changed and continued to change -- for example, the /x/ phoneme (normally noted as GH) died out. The assumption that the dictionary form was "correct" prevented the written form changing to match the new spoken form, and differences just kept getting bigger. It was made worse by a particular form of snobbishness in the educated classes -- the idea that you can't change a word in spelling or pronounciation because it's a French/Latin/Greek word. For example, according to reports, the word "niche" was commonly pronounced "nitch" in the UK in the 19th century, but the pseudo-French "neesh" pronunciation was reintroduced at the end of the 19th/start of the 20th by overzealous school teachers (most people in the US say "nitch", as I understand it).
The Oxford English Dictionary was intended as a catalogue of observed language, not a reference of "correct" forms. Words collected in different regions had different spelling conventions and different sound-letter correspondences. Anyone using the OED headwords as "correct" or "preferred" forms was therefore using a hodge-podge of writing styles from different dialects. This was bad enough in the early days, but the language changed and continued to change -- for example, the /x/ phoneme (normally noted as GH) died out. The assumption that the dictionary form was "correct" prevented the written form changing to match the new spoken form, and differences just kept getting bigger. It was made worse by a particular form of snobbishness in the educated classes -- the idea that you can't change a word in spelling or pronounciation because it's a French/Latin/Greek word. For example, according to reports, the word "niche" was commonly pronounced "nitch" in the UK in the 19th century, but the pseudo-French "neesh" pronunciation was reintroduced at the end of the 19th/start of the 20th by overzealous school teachers (most people in the US say "nitch", as I understand it).
1 x
-
白田龍
- Orange Belt
- Posts: 242
- Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2018 6:54 pm
- Languages: English, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, French, Persian, Arabic, Mandarin, Japanese.
- x 444
-
Cainntear
- Black Belt - 3rd Dan
- Posts: 3532
- Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:04 am
- Location: Scotland
- Languages: English(N)
Advanced: French,Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Intermediate: Italian, Catalan, Corsican
Basic: Welsh
Dabbling: Polish, Russian etc - x 8809
- Contact:
Re: Why is English spelling and pronunciation different?
白田龍 wrote:It is mostly due to the Great Vowel Shift:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift
Most of what the GVS did was change vowels. Taken on its own, its effect is negligible, because it changed vowels sounds fairly consistently, with a few notable exceptions (eg. you retaining the "oo" sound, not taking on "ow") so it mostly only changed the correspondence between letters and phonemes. The problem is the inconsistent rendering of phonemes, which is a different issue.
1 x
-
tastyonions
- Black Belt - 1st Dan
- Posts: 1620
- Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 5:39 pm
- Location: Dallas, TX
- Languages: EN (N), FR, ES, DE, IT, PT, NL, EL
- x 4034
Re: Why is English spelling and pronunciation different?
I would be cool with instituting ð and θ to distinguish between voiced and unvoiced "th." Actually a lot of the characters used in IPA are pretty attractive-looking. I would welcome ʃ and ʒ to designate their respective sounds as well.
0 x
-
dampingwire
- Blue Belt
- Posts: 559
- Joined: Tue Aug 04, 2015 8:11 pm
- Location: Abingdon, UK
- Languages: Italian (N), English (N), French (poor, not studying), Japanese (studying, JLPT N3)
- x 609
Re: Why is English spelling and pronunciation different?
Cainntear wrote:(eg. you retaining the "oo" sound, not taking on "ow")
Cool. So Wolverhampton is ahead of the curve for once
1 x
| 新完全マスター N2聴解 | : | 新完全マスター N2読解 | : |
| 新完全マスター N2文法 | : | TY Comp. German | : |
-
Speakeasy
- x 7661
Re: Why is English spelling and pronunciation different?
I think that most people would agree that English spelling is intolerably difficult. Regrettably, it would appear that there is absolutely no hope for an improvement in the situation ...
A brief history of English spelling - The English Spelling Society
http://spellingsociety.org/history#/page/1
History of English Spelling - English Spelling
http://englishspellingproblems.blogspot.ca/2012/12/history-of-english-spelling.html
A Brief History of Efforts to Simplify English Spelling - American Literacy Council
http://www.americanliteracy.com/Archives/ss-history.htm
English spelling reform - RationalWiki
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/English_spelling_reform
English-language spelling reform - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_reform
The history of English spelling reform - The WordPress
https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2016/02/08/the-history-of-english-spelling-reform/
Should English spelling be simplified? - Cambridge University Press
http://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2015/01/27/english-spelling-simplified/
Let's Make English Spelling Simpler! / Why reform English spelling? - Inglish Spelling
https://inglishspelling.wordpress.com/
https://inglishspelling.wordpress.com/why-reform-english-spelling/
Failed Attempts to Reform English Spelling - Merriam-Webster online Dictionary
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/spelling-suggestions-that-didnt-stick
There must be literally hundreds of similar articles available on the Internet.
A brief history of English spelling - The English Spelling Society
http://spellingsociety.org/history#/page/1
History of English Spelling - English Spelling
http://englishspellingproblems.blogspot.ca/2012/12/history-of-english-spelling.html
A Brief History of Efforts to Simplify English Spelling - American Literacy Council
http://www.americanliteracy.com/Archives/ss-history.htm
English spelling reform - RationalWiki
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/English_spelling_reform
English-language spelling reform - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_reform
The history of English spelling reform - The WordPress
https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2016/02/08/the-history-of-english-spelling-reform/
Should English spelling be simplified? - Cambridge University Press
http://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2015/01/27/english-spelling-simplified/
Let's Make English Spelling Simpler! / Why reform English spelling? - Inglish Spelling
https://inglishspelling.wordpress.com/
https://inglishspelling.wordpress.com/why-reform-english-spelling/
Failed Attempts to Reform English Spelling - Merriam-Webster online Dictionary
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/spelling-suggestions-that-didnt-stick
There must be literally hundreds of similar articles available on the Internet.
2 x