SIMPLIFICATION OF FRENCH SPELLING 541 



sary to preserve the connection between spoken and written language. 

 Pronunciation, like vocabulary, alters, insensibly from generation to 

 generation ; the written words ought to record each change as it occurs." 

 Asserting that it is impossible now to inaugurate suddenly a com- 

 plete series of changes which might readily have been adopted had they 

 been introduced gradually as need arose, M. Meyer tells us that his 

 committee retained existing conventions in so far as they are not in 

 conflict with other conventions no less worthy of consideration, and it 

 denied any wish to establish a phonetic system of spelling. It limited 

 its work to the correction of the most striking irregularities of the 

 present spelling of French. Here again the attitude of this commis- 

 sion of French scholars is seen to be in absolute accord with that taken 

 in America by the Simplified Spelling Board. And the reasons given 

 for action are also almost identical: 



1. The esthetic argument: Our spelling is irregular, and gives the language 

 an ugly irregular look. 



2. The argument for preservation: It is important to maintain our cus- 

 tomary pronunciation upon which the irregularities of our spelling react. 



3. The practical argument: These same irregularities make the study of 

 spelling needlessly difficult. 



With the contention that certain useless silent letters ought to be 

 retained, because they reveal the derivation, M. Meyer has the impa- 

 tience of a scholar; and he points out how the existence of these need- 

 less letters is dangerous to accuracy of pronunciation: 



We write prompt, promptitude, dompter (although there was no p in the 

 Latin domitare) , indomptable. The Academy says plainly that in the words 

 indomptable and prompt the p is silent. Nevertheless, we hear constantly the 

 pronunciation dompter, promptitude, because the school masters who teach 

 French to children, not having the Academy dictionary always at hand, are 

 naturally inclined to pronounce words as they are written. The same cause of 

 error exists in other languages. In English the g in recognize is pronounced, 

 but formerly it was not even written; the g is a pedantic addition which has 

 ended by making its way into the spoken usage. Fault and author are pro- 

 nounced as they are written; formerly they were both written and pronounced 

 faut and autor. 



Littre" noticed how intimately pronunciation was allied to spelling. They 

 are two forces, he says, which react continually upon each other. When there 

 is no extensive teaching of grammar, and the language is learned orally rather 

 than by the eye, then pronunciation modifies spelling, which follows it closely. 

 When, on the contrary, books play a large part in teaching the mother tongue, 

 spelling influences pronunciation: the tendency is to pronounce all the letters, 

 and traditional pronunciation succumbs in many places to the visible symbols. 

 There are to-day frequent examples of this. 



As might be expected, French teachers find the same fault with 

 their illogical spelling that teachers of English find with ours, which 

 is actually far more illogical than theirs and far more irregular. 

 M. Meyer raises their objections with much sympathy: 



Although it is to be regretted that children must make such prolonged 

 efforts to learn to write in conformity with obsolete rules a language which 

 they often speak very correctly otherwise, still the misfortune would not be 

 without some compensation if these efforts contributed to the development of 

 their reasoning powers; but they do not. Learning spelling is above all a 



