If English spelling obays its major rules, then almost every spelling pattern* has no mor than two possibl pronunciations and almost every sound no mor than two possibl spelling patterns.
Then the task of literacy is dramaticly less.
Dictionaries would include spellings that aplied these rules among thair thousands of alredy permitted alturnativ spellings for wurds. The French ar alredy duing this for 6000 French wurds.
Pronunciation kees in dictionaries would use the basic sound-spelling relationships that beginners would lern in lerning to read.
Children’s introduction to education would include thinking in lerning to read, not unexplaind rote lerning of what seems silly to them. Spellers could reason out how to spell, and be permitted to use eny of the rule-based patterns to spell a wurd ‘correctly’.
There would still be a standard spelling for fast composition and fast reading, but it would include a narro range of alturnativs. Since it was so easy to lern and use, it would hold the international spoken English language mor closely together and mor mutually comprehensibl than is happening at present, when so meny English-users remain illiterat or almost so.
Lerners would hav very few choices to make in decoding. Visual familliarity would consolidate these choices in the spelling of words, unlike the present plethora of unpredictabls.
Spellcheckers can allow the alternativ choices in spelling, since thay ar so few.
* Spelling pattern - a relationship of letters to sounds. This can vairy acording to place in a wurd and gramattical function of the wurd.
For the full spelling rules check out: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/sprules1p.htm
Helen Woodall
2 comments:
Then there're the differences between American, British, and Australian English...
Yep. We never say "gotten".
Helen
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