Spelling Reform

A previous paper in the Journal of the Simplified Spelling Society, Pitt (J5 1987/2, p13) briefly demonstrated Esperanto's phonetic spelling system as it compared to the phonetic system called "New Spelling". The conclusion was that Esperanto consistently represents pronunciation, and that diacritics and strict phonetic spelling do not obscure etymological factors which are important for the international appeal of Esperanto. However, there are problems of implementation of the system as a working model, since one may question the regularity of the system in use. ln an attempt to widen the analysis of Esperanto's spelling problems, this study will consider the lessons that can be learned from Esperanto's long experience.

As pointed out before (Pitt 1987, Large 1985), groups such as the Simplified Spelling Society and the artificial (or planned) language movement have many common aspects. Both are special interest movements, with publications, enthusiasts and schools of thought. Both are concerned with introducing more rational language systems. And both attempt to reform established language practice. Hence in this study, the simplified spelling of Esperanto will be discussed in the light of practical issues arising from its creation, implementation and effectiveness.

The present author draws most examples of Esperanto and creole usage from work carried out at the Institut d'Etudes Créoles Français in Aix-en-Provence and the Universala Esperanto Asocio (UEA) central office in Rotterdam. The symbols < > indicate graphemes, / / phonemes and { } literal translations.

The present study is an attempt at assessing the level of consistency in the orthographic systems of selected sixteenth and seventeenth-century printers and at tracing the influence that normative writings could have potentially exerted on them. The approach taken here draws upon the philological tradition of examining and comparing several texts written in the same language, but produced at different times. The study discusses the orthography of the editions of The Schoole of Vertue, a manual of good conduct for children, published between 1557 and 1687. The orthographic variables taken into account fall into two criteria: the distribution and functional load of the selected graphemes and the indication of vowel length.

Standardisation of the Ukrainian language during the Soviet period passed through a number of fluctuations which had their impact on the language structure, including the spelling.
In 1921 the first state-supported spelling rules appeared in Soviet Ukraine, which were based on the language usage of the Eastern part of the country. By contrast the spelling reform of 1928 aimed at unifying the speaking and writing habits of both Easterners and Westerners. When the Soviet authorities assumed an oppressive attitude towards non-Russian peoples at the turn of the 1930s, the official spelling was rejected as “nationalistic” and pro-Polish. Instead, in the anti-reform
of 1933, Ukrainian spelling was brought as close as possible to the Russian one (by the same token, it clashed with the internal structure of the language). Thus it required further revision and the spelling discussions of 1938-1945 finally reached a quasi-compromise between the two previous codes, which resulted in a “half-reform”. In the 1960s, another discussion followed, but had no practical results (a non-reform). Finally, in 1990 another half-reform reintroduced some of the authentic
Ukrainian elements in the new version of the spelling.

The Russian spelling reform of 1917-1918 was very successful – so successful that many young Russians, when confronted with a pre-1917 Russian text, do not know how to read 〈ѣ〉, 〈ѳ〉 or 〈ея〉. However, many reforms of writing systems have not met with success. Among them are the 1930 attempt to convert Russian to the Latin alphabet; the Second Chinese Character Simplification Scheme of 1977, which the PRC government had to withdraw in 1986; the French spelling reform of 1990, which is still ignored by most of the public; and the Latinisation of Uzbek of 1993-1995, which, even twenty years later and after the end of the twice extended ‘transitional period’ of altogether fifteen years, has not been implemented by newspapers and magazines.
This paper examines a range of writing reforms (script reforms, spelling reforms, and glyphic reforms) – mainly from the Slavic and post-Soviet area – to determine which factors influence the success or failure of a reform and to what extent. Among the factors considered are the orthographic principles touched by the reform; the motivation for it; the scientific arguments put forward in the discussion; the semiotic values associated with the reformed writing system; the timing; the political system of the country; and the literacy rate of the speech community.
The results of this analysis might be a bit disillusioning for us as linguists because linguistic factors turn out to play a very minor role compared to extralinguistic factors. In fact, the most decisive factor seems to be timing.

Abstract Nonstandard spelling of certain words in English, French and other languages is quite a widespread phenomenon, commonly referred to as Eye Dialect. Typical examples are instead of in English and instead of in French. Eye Dialect, despite using nonstandard spelling, maintains grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences that reflect standard pronunciation, unlike Casual Speech Spelling, which aims to transcribe substandard forms (e.g., ). In this paper I attempt to account for both phenomena in a framework couched in Optimality Theory, partly drawing on a set of constraints already proposed in existing literature (Song &amp; Wiese, 2010), at the same time as proposing new ones justified on phonetic, cognitive or system-internal grounds. It is shown how Eye Dialect and Casual Speech Spelling, instead of creating new sound-to-letter relationships, promote the more general ones, at the expense of very specific or idiosyncratic phoneme-to-grapheme mappings. There are several other factors that seem to interact: the preference for 1:1 relationships (e.g., unambiguous graphemes are preferred to ambiguous ones), the acoustic salience of certain segments or features (e.g., stridency or nasality are more likely to require a graphic representation than glides or schwa), the visual salience of certain letters (e.g., letters whose shape extends to upper and/or lower spaces seem to contribute more to word recognition and are thus more likely to be retained). It is interesting to note that logography and rebus writing are also employed, along with Eye Dialect and Casual Speech Spelling. The common intent seems to be simplicity and, possibly, rebellion.

Nonstandard spelling of certain words in English, French and other languages is quite a widespread phenomenon, commonly referred to as Eye Dialect. Typical examples are <woz, sed> instead of <was, said> in English and <koi, jamè> instead of <quoi, jamais> in French. Eye Dialect, despite using nonstandard spelling, maintains grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences that reflect standard pronunciation, unlike Casual Speech Spelling, which aims to transcribe substandard forms (e.g., <kinda, wanna>). In this paper I attempt to account for both phenomena in a framework couched in Optimality Theory, partly drawing on a set of constraints already proposed in existing literature (Song & Wiese, 2010), at the same time as proposing new ones justified on phonetic, cognitive or system-internal grounds. It is shown how Eye Dialect and Casual Speech Spelling, instead of creating new sound-to-letter relationships, promote the more general ones, at the expense of very specific or idiosyncratic phoneme-to-grapheme mappings. There are several other factors that seem to interact: the preference for 1:1 relationships (e.g., unambiguous graphemes are preferred to ambiguous ones), the acoustic salience of certain segments or features (e.g., stridency or nasality are more likely to require a graphic representation than glides or schwa), the visual salience of certain letters (e.g., letters whose shape extends to upper and/or lower spaces seem to contribute more to word recognition and are thus more likely to be retained). It is interesting to note that logography and rebus writing are also employed, along with Eye Dialect and Casual Speech Spelling. The common intent seems to be simplicity and, possibly, rebellion.