英語の綴字法

概要

論文の詳細を見る
In this brief survey of English orthography, stress has been laid upon the so-called "unphonetic" character - in other words, "historically phonetic" character - of the present English spelling with some account of its relation to pronunciation. The origin of English orthography and the causes of its irregularity have been treated in outline. The claim of the English language to become a world language is greatly handicapped by its difficult spelling, labelled by a scholar as "the world's most awesome mess." Despite many attempts at spelling reform, it is likely that English will keep its "bad" orthography (etymologically, "correct+writing")-to the great annoyance and distress of its learners, especially, of foreign students-partly because English is the mother tongue of a nation whose character is conservative, and partly because it is in the nature of any language that pronunciation is constantly changing and spelling is apt to be fixed and left behind, thus bearing little relation to pronunciation. At the end of the report, there is a table of the English alphabet, each letter showing all the different sounds it represents and examples of words. It is hoped that the list, though incomplete, may show some of the complexity of English orthography, how far English is from the ideal language of one symbol (letter) for one sound.
1956-09-20