Economic and Social Costs of English Spelling

[Machjo]

The English Spelling Society
Fifty per cent of male prisoners are illiterate | Scotland | STV News

I found the article in the link above interesting, suggesting that the unnecessarily complicated spelling of English is a contributor to a higher rate of illiteracy among English speakers than their counterparts in other language communities around the aorld, and also a contributor to a higher rate of incarceration.

Should the Commonwealth of Nations begin official consultation on English spelling reform to tackle this issue?

For those who are unaware, "the Commonwealth of Nations" is the official name of the British Commonwealth.

I personally voted "other answer." In reality, I'm unsure. I was tempted to vote 1 or 2 above, since it would certainly save money and help the most vulnerable members of our society in the long term. I suppose it might be fine as the official spelling of Canadian government administration, while leaving the private sector do as it wishes. Since such a spelling would be easy to learn by desing, anyone who wishes to learn it, could. At least it would make government more accessible especially to severe dyslexics and others who may struggle with spelling.

 

[Johnnny]

Doesnt Scotland have 3 offically recognized languages?

So if a Scotmans in prison who learned Scottish Gaelic as a child goes to prison and is tested in his english proficiency he would no doubt do a ****ty job. Just like me as a CANADIAN whose first langauge is english, if tested in french i would score poorly on a french proficiency test...

English is fine, and whats going on in Scotland i dont think represents all of the Nations of the Commonwealth....

 

[Machjo]

Doesnt Scotland have 3 offically recognized languages?

So if a Scotmans in prison who learned Scottish Gaelic as a child goes to prison and is tested in his english proficiency he would no doubt do a ****ty job. Just like me as a CANADIAN whose first langauge is english, if tested in french i would score poorly on a french proficiency test...

English is fine, and whats going on in Scotland i dont think represents all of the Nations of the Commonwealth....

I'm sure you'd agree though that simplifying English spelling would certainly make it easier to learn English, especially for severe dyslexics who rely on phonemic spelling (logical spelling-to-sound correlations) to make reading easier. According to the same link in the OP:

The educational prospects of weak English-speaking pupils are worse than in other languages
Literacy teaching is more difficult
When all spellings have reliable sounds and the total number of spellings used is only 50 or fewer, as in all European languages other than English, teaching children to read requires very little training. Almost any literate adult or child can do it. Because English uses 185 spellings, 69 of which have variable sounds, English literacy has to be taught by well-trained professionals.
Because of the teaching difficulties, there is also still much disagreement about how best to teach English literacy. Since the 1950’s, ever since all English-speaking countries began to monitor literacy standards more carefully, and have invariably found them disappointing, there has been much expensive but unprofitable research into different teaching methods, along with costly support for struggling pupils.
The educational prospects of weak English-speaking pupils are worse than in other languages

Even children of average ability take longer to learn to read and write English than their contemporaries in other languages, but the weakest Anglophone pupils need an extremely long time to achieve even moderate literacy. Until they do so, they cannot learn much else. Other spelling systems give all pupils readier access to wider learning.
Initial English literacy acquisition is hard enough, but catching up is even harder. This explains why most well-intentioned and expensive initiatives to improve inadequate adult literacy skills have brought disappointing results, with particularly serious consequences for the rehabilitation of offenders.

Certainly if it takes longer to learn to read and write, that's less time to learn a trade or profession at school, and more tax dollars and more high school graduates with no skills for the job market, etc.

This quote here is quite revealing too:

“Children from a majority of European countries become accurate and fluent in foundation level reading before the end of the first school year. ....The rate of development in English is more than twice as slow.”

This just means a greater economic burden.

 

[Cannuck]

Should the Commonwealth of Nations begin official consultation on English spelling reform to tackle this issue?

For those who are unaware, "the Commonwealth of Nations" is the official name of the British Commonwealth.

Why didn't you just say "the British Commonwealth" instead of taking up two lines to get your point across. This is a thread, after all, about making English easier.

 

[Machjo]

Why didn't you just say "the British Commonwealth" instead of taking up two lines to get your point across. This is a thread, after all, about making English easier.

Sorry.

Honestly though, I'm surprised to find so many famous writers have promoted reform too:

English language spelling reform - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

SR1 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And SR1 was semi-successful in Australia for a short time.

 

[VanIsle]

Why didn't you just say "the British Commonwealth" instead of taking up two lines to get your point across. This is a thread, after all, about making English easier.

He did make it easier. Posting both was good because while I thought they were the same, I wasn't sure. The explanation made that clear.

 

[petros]

Bn txt msg nglsh

 

[Machjo]

Bn txt msg nglsh

ai think dhi ai'dia iz te meik it fe'nimik.

 

[gerryh]

How much will it cost to reform the system and language?

 

[DaSleeper]

And people in a forum will bitch about the way one spells honor or honour....:roll:

 

[gerryh]

And people in a forum will bitch about the way one spells honor or honour....:roll:

It's a Canadian Forum, the spelling should be honour. Unfortunately, all our software is american made and the auto spell checkers will change it to honor.

 

[DaSleeper]

It's a Canadian Forum, the spelling should be honour. Unfortunately, all our software is american made and the auto spell checkers will change it to honor.

My spell checker (Google) says either way is correct. Although it found that you should have Capitalized American :lol: but not to worry....I know you do it on purpose;-)

 

[gerryh]

All of that, though, is besides the point. The OP is stating that we are wasting a lot of money because of the way English is spelled. I want to know how much it is going to cost to make the changes that they are suggesting compared to the costs of leaving things as they are.

 

[Corduroy]

Where's the correlation between crime in a language community and the complexity of that language's spelling?

 

[Bar Sinister]

I wonder exactly how English spelling would be reformed. Would pheonetic spelling be used rather than the historical spelling? If so which version of English would be chosen? There is a big difference in the way English speakers in Britain pronounce words and the way they are pronounced in the US and Canada. And even in the US there are huge regional differences in pronunciation.

Try these pronunciations of the same word:

farther - farther (Canadian English)
fahtha - British, Australian, and New Zealand English
faddah - Brooklynese

There are, of course, thousands of other examples of different pronunciations of English words. Somehow I don't think agreement on what the correct pronunciation of each word is will be easy.

 

[Cannuck]

Fun Facts

Multinational personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language .... until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months at hard labor to reading six lines aloud.


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 argue.
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, knob, 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!

 

[Machjo]

How much will it cost to reform the system and language?

I don't know. I guess it woudl depend on the kind of reform we're talking about. Turkey had undergone major language reform last century. I don't know the costs of the reform, but now Turkey has a nearly 100% literacy rate, a perpetual investment as long as they don't go back to the more difficult language they used to have.

Korea used to use the chinese script until King Sae Jong convened scholars to create Hangul. It spread gradually among the people until it eventually supplanted the Chinese script. today, korea's literacy rate is nearly 100%

Bahasa Indonesia was also established initially by committee on the basis of a regional trade language. Today an extimated 99% of the population does not speak Indonesian as a mother tongue, yet at least 995 of the population is fluent in it owing to its logical phonology and grammar.

If we're looking to more moderate reforms, French had undergone moderate spelling reforms in 1990, and now it's already implemented in schools across the French-speaking world.

Whatever the temporary cost of transition, the benefit is perpetual. Certainly any temporary cost will always be outdone by even moderate benefits in perpetuity.

 

[Machjo]

Where's the correlation between crime in a language community and the complexity of that language's spelling?

The more complex the language or its orthography, the more higher the likelihood of a high illeteracy rate. Now, try to write a resume if you're illiterate, or even functionally illiterate (i.e. with a command of the written language that is too weak for certain common practical uses), let alone read instructions at work, etc.

good luck finding a decent job.

 

[Corduroy]

The more complex the language or its orthography, the more higher the likelihood of a high illeteracy rate. Now, try to write a resume if you're illiterate, or even functionally illiterate (i.e. with a command of the written language that is too weak for certain common practical uses), let alone read instructions at work, etc.

good luck finding a decent job.

That doesn't answer my question.

 

[Machjo]

That doesn't answer my question.

How does it not? Illeteracy makes it higher to find a job, which in turn leads to peverty, which in turn increases the chances of turning to crime.