I 873«] Th c Future of the English Language. ^77 



compared with it, — not even the German, which must shake 

 off many a weakness before it can enter the lists with the 

 English."* 



The great defect of our language is its absurd orthography. 

 This is the stumbling-block which prevents the ready acqui- 

 sition of the spoken language by foreigners, and hinders the 

 majority of our own people from acquiring an intelligent 

 acquaintance with the riches of our literature. M. de 

 Candolle was surprised to see that intelligent English 

 children learned to read with great difficulty. He found 

 the reason to be that each letter has many sounds, or that 

 each sound is written in many different ways. " They are 

 obliged to learn word by word. It is a matter of memory, 

 almost entirely destitute of rule." The great defect of our 

 language in the eyes of this critic, who is certainly not an 

 adverse one, "is an orthography entirely irregular, so absurd 

 that it requires more than a year for children to learn to read 

 in it." More than a year ! The hindrance which it causes 

 to elementary education is much greater than this. 



Mr. Russell Martineau, in a report to the Philological 

 Society, says : — " How spelling can be taught at all in ele- 

 mentary schools is a constant wonder to me. There is not 

 a single rule which a teacher can lay down which has not 

 almost as many exceptions as examples. Thus — ' Final e 

 lengthens the preceding vowel, as in make, bite ;' but then, 

 what of love, glove, tongue? ' G before e or i is sounded 

 like j, as in gentle, gin ;' but gig, gild, get protest. ' Gh 

 after au and ou is sounded like /, as laugh, cough, rough ;' 

 but what of haughty, plough, bough ? And, worst of all, 

 what can the teacher make of the double vowels ea in each, 

 bread, great ; ai in hail, against ; au in fault, haunch, 

 laugh ; ou in sound, wound, soul ; ow in blow, trowel ; ew 

 in yew, shew ; ei in receive, reign ; ie in field, tie, friend ? 

 Or, approaching the subject from the other side, the follow- 

 ing vowel sounds have a plurality of modes of expression, 

 between which the luckless pupil has to choose : — 



a in ale a, ai, ay, ea. 



e ,, eel e, ee, ea, ei, ie. 



e „ ell e, ea, ai. 



i ,, idle . . . . i, ie, ei. 



o ,, old o, oe, ou, ow, ew, oa. 



u ,, cue u, ue, ew. 



ou ,, pound .... ou, ow. 



au ,, fault .... a, au, aw. 



* Quoted by Mr. Pitman, in his " Manual of Phonography," 1873, page 4. 



