STUDIES IN ENGLISH SPELLING. 3 
Old English. Modern. 
a = ae 
ze = ae 
e = e. 
i = Is 
= Oo. 
= u 
a =— au, aw. 
ae = ae, ai, ao, ay. 
é = ee, €a, @i, €0, ie. 
i = ai, ay, ei, ui, uy. 
6 = oa, oe, OW. 
u = 00, ul, OU, Ue, eu, ew, Ue, eau. 
Thus, during the period of transition from old to modern 
English, an English writer who had to express the sound formerly 
denoted by a, would write ‘au ” the second vowel 
giving notice, as it were, that the preceding ‘‘a’’ must be sounded 
as ‘‘4” was formerly, and he would deal in like manner with the 
other long or accented vowels. It must, however, be observed 
and “ui 
2? 
or ‘‘aw, 
that some double vowels as ‘‘ea,” “ei,” ‘ou, are 
also sometimes sounded in other ways, the words “head,” 
“sleight,” “eight,” ‘‘house,” ‘‘thought,” ‘build’ and ‘guile ” 
furnishing examples. It is curious, too, that ‘ oo” should be 
Cae] ” 
used to express “ti’’ instead of “ uu. 
The combinations “oi,” ‘‘oy,” “uoy” and ‘‘ow” (as in 
“ cow”), do not express any sound used in old English. 
It is impossible not to admire the ingenuity with which English 
writers surmounted the difficulty which confronted them, but the 
method was not consistent with itself, and being of the nature 
of a makeshift, Nemesis has followed its adoption by creating 
the delusion that these double vowels are really diphthongs, and 
another that they correctly spell the sounds they are used to 
express. 
My next study is in what I will call the “ duplicated consonant.” 
I mean such combinations as we see in the words afer, stellar, 
