Re: English: Thou

"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.

I understand fully that it wasn't consistent across society, for a
variety of reasons.

--
Robert