Re: English: Thou

Robert Hailman wrote:

> "Thomas R. Wier" wrote:
> >
> > Robert Hailman wrote:
> >
> > >  But before the Great Vowel Shift,
> > > English spelling of vowels was much more regular then it is now, no?
> >
> > Um, not really.  It was, in fact, wholly irregular, if by regular you mean
> > "used consistently across society".  English spelling did not gain any sort
> > of consistency until the late 1600s, early 1700s, or so. Up until that point,
> > it may have been regular for most people on a strictly personal level, but
> > even then, there was wide variation -- witness the famous anecdote about
> > Shakespeare's multiple spellings of his own last name.
>
> I mean regular in the sence that there is a more direct relationship
> between the written forms and the spoken forms of a word. It must be,
> because English spelling didn't become really fiendish until after the
> GVS, when written letter(s) no longer corresponded to the "proper"
> spoken phoneme.
Well, if you're searching for the real problems with sound-to-character
correspondence in English, I identify two areas.  The first was the Norman
conquest, which eviscerated the authority Anglo-Saxon literate elite and
replaced them with French-speaking Norman scribes.  These more or less
wholly imposed French spelling habits onto English.   Whole phonemes were
simply not distinguished (e.g., /&/ vs.  /&:/ vs. /a/ vs. /a:/:  all <a>).

The second, and perhaps more permanent, circumstance was the
publication of the first printed books in England, the incunabula, by William Caxton
(IIRC) in the 1480s.   His spelling system quickly predominated thoughout
England which began the (very slow) process of standardization, which
came to full completion sometime around the beginning of the 18th century,
I'd estimate.

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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: trwier
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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