34 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. XXII. No. 546 



SCIENCE: 



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A NEW ORTHOGRAPHY. 



By J. I. D. HINDS, CUMBERLAND UNIVERSITY, LEBANON, TENN. 



The ortbography of the Eng:lish language is distressingly bad. 

 A reform in f pelling would relieve education of one of its heaviest 

 burdens. The hardest task of the first six years of the child's 

 school-life is the spelling lesson. Indeed, the labor never ends. 

 The veteran school teacher dares not venture too far from his 

 dictionary. None of the phonetic systems which have been pre- 

 sented have met with such favor as to pass into general use. Yet 

 reform must be possible. 



In the phonetic systems now before the world there are two 

 barriers to their general adoption. In the first place, the change 

 from the present spelling is too great and too abrupt. The human 

 race is like a heavy body in motion. Change of direction must 

 be effected gradually. In the second place, the proposed systems 

 are too complicated, and present distinctions which are too nice 

 to be generally appreciated. To be acceptable, a system must 

 possess two leading characteristics: (1) It must make the least pos- 

 sible departure from that now in use, and (2) it must he so simple 

 that it may be read at sight and that the little child can learu it 

 underslandingly. 



I think such a system is within our reach and that it might be 

 brought into general use in a few years. I suggest the follow- 

 ing:— 



1. The present alphabet should be retained with as little change 

 as possible. This is important, tecause new characters frighten 

 the people and lay additional burdens on the printer. Besides, 

 the language can be very well written with the characters which 

 we have. The only deficiency is found with the vowels, and this 

 can be supplied, as I shall show later. 



2. Each character should have a fixed sound, and should retain 

 the same sound in all ils positions. In carrying out this rule, too 

 much nicely must not be attempted. The vowel sounds are so 

 variable that to represent all of them we should have to multiply 

 characters almost indefinitely. We should thus have many words 

 spelled differently in different positions and as coming from the 

 mouths of different speakers. Every word should have a fixed 

 form, and should retain this form in all its positions, though its 

 pronunciation should vary. The written word is the symbol of 

 an idea, and, at best, but approximately represents the spoken 

 word. "What we want is a ci mpromJse between the two which 

 will do the least violence to pronunciation and afford the greatest 

 ease in spelling. The mind tolerates a certain amount of am- 

 biguity rather than tndure too nice distinctions. This is illustrated 

 in the vaiying sounds of the vowels as now used. Again, obscure 

 sounds cannot be well represented phonetically. In syllables 

 where they occur the vowel indicated by the etymology of the 

 word should be retained. 



3. Words should be spelled as they are pronounced, and each 

 sound should be represented by its proper character wherever it 

 occurs. Here, as before, too much nicety must not be attempted. 



Let us have a judicious compromise. The great difficulty of 

 English spelling does not depend upon the fact that each of the 

 vowels has several sounds. It is rather because each of these 

 sounds is represented, not only by the othtr vowels, but also by a 

 wonderful variety of combinations of vowels and consonants. For 

 example, the long sound of a is indicated in at least twenty diflfer- 

 ent ways, as in the following words: Bass, fate, pazn, poi/, da/ilia, 

 vein, \hey. great, eh, goal, gaMge, champagne, campaigrn, sirajgr^t, 

 ieign, eight, aye, oheyeA, weighed, halfpenny. So there are 

 twenty-four combinations expressing the long sound of e, twenty- 

 six for the sound of a in all, among which are augh in aught, 

 ough in thought, and augha in Vaughan ; and for the sound of 

 short unaccented a Miss Soames finds no less than thirty-four 

 letters and combinations. No wonder the child, when learning 

 to spell, is ready to give up in despair. 



Now all that is very desirable can be attained through our present 

 alphabet by giving to each letter a fixed sound and supplying a 

 few vowel sounds by the use of double letters. The names of the 

 letters should be so changed as to give to each vowel and vowel 

 combination the sound which it represents and to make the names 

 of the consonants uniform. We will take the five vowels and 

 give them the names which they have in the European languages, 

 and let them, when written singly, represent the short sound of 

 these vowels. Let the long sounds be indicated by doubling or 

 adding the letter e. For the diphthongs retain the ordinary com- 

 binations. The vowel system will then stand as follows: — 



Long, 

 aa, as in father, 

 ae, as in mate, 

 ie, as in machine, 

 oe, as in note, 

 ue, as in rule, 



ei, like i in pine, 

 au, as in laud. 



Vowels. 

 Intermediate, 

 a, as in last, 



00, as in foot, bull, 

 Diphthongs. 

 ai, as in air, 

 ou, as in house. 



Short, 

 a, as in mat, 

 e, as in net, 

 i, as in niit, 

 0, as in not, 

 u, as in up. 



oi, as in boil, 

 yu, as in you. 



Examining this table, we see that the short vowels present no 

 change from their present usage. The Italian a is expressed by 

 doubling the letter. The long a really corresponds to short e. and 

 there is a fitness, therefore, in representing it by ae. This is com- 

 monly done now, except that the e usually goes to the end of the 

 syllable. The other long sounds are also appropriately indicated 

 by adding e. The intermediate a is so little used that it hardly 

 seems necessary to provide for it a separate character. Its sound 

 is usually suggested by the consonants which follow it. The 

 sound of M in bull is « ell represented by 00. The long ii is really 

 yu, and it is so indicated The least satisfactory of all, perhaps, 

 is the use of ei for the long sound of i. The combination ai would 

 have been better, but this occuis now in so many words and its 

 sound is so well fixed that it was not thought best to change it. 

 As a compromise, the letter / may still be retained for the per- 

 sonal pronoun. When these double vowels are once in use, they 

 will naturally, in the course of time, be combined into one char- 

 acter. 



Since the short vowel sounds do not occur in accented, open 

 syllables, the lengthening e may be omitted in these, and the 

 spelling thus further simplified. As an additional compromise, 

 the letters in such positions might retain their present sounds. 



With the consonants, we need have little trouble. We will ob- 

 tain the name uniformly by adding to each letter and combination 

 the long a. The sound being indicated by the name, it is not 

 necessary to give sample words. With an approximate classifica- 

 tion into surds and sonants, stops and continuants, they are as 

 follows: — 



Consonants. 



p, pae, b, bae, t, tae, d. dae, 



/, fae, V, vae, k, kae, g. gae, 



c, cae (chae), j, jae, th, thae, dh, dhae (they), 



s, sae z, zae, sh, shae, zh, zhae, 



r, rae, /, lae, m, mae, ?i, nae, 



ft, hae, t/, yae, w, wae, /)«,', hwae(whay)i. 



