Talk:English-language spelling reform

The 'Irish Question'(?)

To reiterate what I have stated elsewhere on the Net when the question of an international commission on the reform of the spelling of the English language has been raised: it should be called just that, the 'Commission on the Spelling of English,' not 'English Spelling Commission' as some suggest. We are talking about an international language many of whose non-English speakers and nations count it as their mother tongue/first language, and 'English' used adjectivally seems to confer English ownership on the proceedings as opposed to the due recognition owed to the language's original country of origin[[1]]. The same of course applies to this Wiki article. While it seems reasonable for readers looking for 'English Spelling Reform' to be directed here, the article itself should be entitled 'Reform of the Spelling of English[[2]].' This is not about political correctness, but ownership. Etaonsh 18:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

This problem involves the article title and can thus only be rectified by setting up an alternative article with the title 'Reform of the Spelling of English[[3]].' Unfortunately, one of the young moderators of this 'free encyclopedia that anyone can edit' has had other ideas: [[4]] He now says that, if still resolute in my intent, I should first propose a move[[5]] here[[6]], i.e., that we (assuming we are reading this) discuss a move to 'Reform of the Spelling of English'[[7]]. What do people think? Etaonsh 15:54, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

How does 'English language spelling reform' sound? (Your proposed title feels rather cumbersome to me). ColinBell 10:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I understand, Colin, re 'cumbersome,' but it is a 'cumbersome' designed to be inclusive and avoid conflict. My first entry, 'Reform of the Spelling of the English Language'[[8]] was similar to yours, in that it made reference (uncontroversially it seemed, at first) to 'the English language.' Then I realised almost at once that the common, innocent-sounding phrase 'the English language,' also subtly expresses the very suggestion of ownership I was trying to avoid, and is itself also cumbersome - 'English' (as a noun) will do - hence my second entry [[9]]. It's all about trying to invite the non-English English-speaking world to participate in this important issue, and not appearing to exclude said relevant majority. To refer you back to my earlier premise, above: ' 'English' used adjectivally seems to confer English ownership.' Etaonsh 11:22, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I remain unconvinced as to why "English" as a noun is better than the noun phrase "English language". Nor, since there has been no serious interest in spelling reform in England (or the UK) for some time, is the issue you raise a live one, or likely to become so in the forseeable future. ColinBell 11:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

What does "English language" convey over the noun "English" beyond tautology and ownership?

An active minority [[10]] maintain a lively interest in the issue, whose potential as a live issue increases with considerations surrounding new communications technologies. Etaonsh 11:58, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

"English language spelling reform" would remove the ambiguity in the current title, which could be read as "spelling reform by the English". I disagree that "English language" conveys any more ownership than the noun "English".

I should have said "no serious mainstream interest", i.e., by government, education authorities, dictionary makers or the press.

I don't think I have anything further useful to contribute on this topic. ColinBell 12:39, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh dear, that rather puts you at a disadvantage.

Since when did 'government, education authorities, dictionary makers or the press' represent mainstream interests? --Etaonsh 22:16, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The movement is almost universally refered to as "English spelling reform." If you want to change that, Wikipedia is not the place to start. An encyclopedia describes; it does not dictate. --Tysto 02:03, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

'Wikipedia is not the place to start' is not dictating? Where is the clever money, then? --londheart 22:28, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Lets just do this, and then worry about what to call it.Cameron Nedland 16:12, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

As the actress said to the bishop? --londheart 22:28, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

lol, that's not what i ment.Cameron Nedland 20:02, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The derivational argument against

This was the earlier text:

For example, Latin- or Greek-based word parts are often reduceable to their meaning.

I find it hilarious that the author makes exactly the mistake (misspelling reducible as reduce + able) that he or she is claiming traditional orthography helps with. Nothing against the author; and his or her point is, in fact, valid. It's just fascinating. It shows how TO betrays us just where it could be most helpful. --Tysto 05:14, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The argument quoted above is weak and controversial, and no evidence has been supplied in the article to support it. No good reason exists why Greek roots such as phone, graph, photo and phobia would be readily discernible when spelt with the redundant -ph- digraph, but the roots would be incomprehensible when respelt more consistently with Germanic orthography as fone, graf, foto and fobia. Show someone the word grafofobia (it's a Spanish word with Greek roots) and if they know their Greek roots they may correctly guess the meaning as fear of writing, even though the word is not spelt using the usual English orthography for words with Greek roots.

A similar argument can be made for Latin roots and roots from other languages.--B.d.mills 11:02, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

The unstated 'missing argument' referred to above is presumably one to the effect that e.g., the letters 'ph' for 'f' send out a) a warning signal to the reader that Greek roots are involved and b) a continual reminder that the original Greek phi was a somewhat different sound. It is indeed a weak and academic argument that this somehow greatly assists the reader in acquiring knowledge of Greek roots, and in view of the cumulative cost of these orthographic extravagances to the English-speaking world as a whole - in which poverty remains far from unknown - it is surely also an irresponsible one, to boot? --Etaonsh 13:18, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Spanish for instance has telefono for telephone, and caracteristica for characteristic, &c.Cameron Nedland 16:11, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes this is rather a silly point as the Spanish demonstrates. Afrikaans manages perfectly well with telefoon (double o to denote the long vowel), ekwatoriaal, seksueel etc. Plenty of other languages do too. Booshank 16:27, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Prominent Supporters of Reform

Some mention/list should be made of 3e prominent supporters and backers of spelling reform: Sir James Pitman, President Theodore Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, Dewey, Carnegie, etc. Etaonsh 09:06, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. --Tysto 02:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

And then theres me...Cameron Nedland 16:14, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Obstacles

The article as it currently stands seems to place 1755 in the early 19th century. --Etaonsh 13:38, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Criticism

I'm missing the argument that most or all spelling reforms concentrate on foreigners learning to spell, on first class school children learning to write, on adults passing over to the new rules, but tend to neglect that (fixed) spelling is a service to the reader, and only to the reader. Any degree of complication in writing is justified by speeding up, simplifying, disambiguating the process of reading. A spelling reform considerably improving readibilty might be welcome. Unfortunately, English spelling is not yet unintelligible enough, so there actually is no consent within eyeshot on going into the trouble of modifying a proven system for nothing. --[IP] 09:16, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Once again, I have added some useful info and a link to many more objections & their rebuttals. And within a few days someone will delete it without consulting anybody else. Gate Keepers! They act just like religious fundamentalists.JO753 03:16, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Increasing use of Hindi Alphabets while writing English

(I deleted the content that was here as it was awful in a number of ways. If you're interested, go to ammbaanig's talk page Hadrian89 (talk) 13:10, 21 November 2008 (UTC) )

 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ammbaanig (talk • contribs) 18:36, 3 March 2008 (UTC) 

Anyone object to the above tract being removed? Poor style, rambling & repetitive, not to mention off topic...Hadrian89 (talk) 11:56, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I'd have been interesting to know if Hindi alphabets were actually used to write English, however the above comments refer to no such practice, contrary to its title. Apcbg (talk) 12:25, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'd be interested to know as well. Oh well. I'm going to delete the body of his text and suggest that anybody interested goes to the user's talk page (which is exactly the same anyway). Hadrian89 (talk) 13:10, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I haven't heard of Hindi being used to write English, but I know that the Korean alphabet has been used increasingly to write English. Many Korean words are actually English words just written in the Korean alphabet. Αδελφος (talk) 21:23, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

'Spelling Reform Campaigns'

Are these truly 'campaigns' as such or a shortlist of proposed simplified systems? As there are potentially dozens of possible contenders for inclusion on the list, why these and not others? --Etaonsh 20:16, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I can't speak for the others on the list, but The Nooalf Revolution is an actual campaign. I've been tilting my lance at this for 8 years. I think very few of the people offering up reform proposals have any idea of the magnitude of the project. The typical 'reformer' puts together a system (usually just a sort of regularization scheme, which ends up looking like mispelled regular english), gets on the internet and discovers that his system has been preceeded by a hundred years, maybe joins Saundspel for a while, then drops it and goes on with his life.

What gets me is the resistance to the whole idea of reform. Its exactly like trying to get someone to quit smoking! Anybody who's been watching this topic lately knows that SOMEONE with a serious tradspelotine addiction has been deleting my additions. JO753 02:12, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Kinda funny; it's 2011 and someone still has it in for Nooalf! I re-added Nooalf to the list of augmented reform proposals several days ago and now it's gone again. JO753 20:15, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

The meaning of "Spelling Reform" when no central language regulator exists

That may sound like a silly question, but does the discussion on English spelling reform even make sense considering that there is in fact no official orthography of English set out by a centralized body like "l'Académie française", "la Real Academia Espanõla", or "de Nederlandse Taalunie" ?

Considering that there is no legally-binding orthographic standard in the United States, or the United Kingdom, or any other English-speaking country for that matter, aren't newspapers, publishers, writers, educators, or ordinary individuals basically free to use any spelling they may choose, without any need for a formal "spelling reform" ? This (rhetorical) question is related to a broader discussion now going on here on whether standard English is actually regulated or not. Please contribute. 200.177.13.136 02:35, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Worldwide there is no centralized body; however, for British English I would say that the Oxford English Dictionary, even if it has no legal authority, has de facto authority. I'm pretty sure all the major publishing houses and newspapers follow its decisions. Hadrian89 (talk) 12:11, 17 November 2008 (UTC) 17Nov08

The problem with that is the commercial interest: surely a language spelt problematically gives people a big reason to buy dictionaries? Not immediately obvious to all, perhaps, but hardly yet a conspiracy theory?--86.31.105.33 (talk) 18:32, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

...added to which, there is the 'cavalier connection.' English spelling historically got more complicated with the Restoration of the Monarchy, gaining spurious French letters as if in recognition of Charles II's long exile in France - and Oxford, the inescapable base of the inescapable dictionary, was historically the cavalier stronghold and temporary capital of the forces of his ill-fated father, Charles I.--86.31.105.33 (talk) 18:40, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that centralized language regulation is a necessary condition for a spelling reform to take place. After all, Noah Webster managed to reform English spelling in America without the aid of any centralized language regulator. FilipeS 21:12, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Noah Webster was only able to institute some changes because he published the first dictionary of American English. Even so, many of his proposed changes were not accepted, such as respelling tongue as tung. I have since added a paragraph about the lack of a spelling regulator as an obstacle to spelling reform of the English language. --B.d.mills 06:18, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Even though many reformers think that, its just an opinion. As you can see with the French & German reforms, having a central regulator/authority dictating changes can be very unpopular and possibly unsuccessful. Because of the social differences and the magnitude, I believe it would be a total failiure for English. Here's a future history thing I did about it: The Feared & Reviled Shlock Tank Analogy. JO 753 19:09, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

There seems to me to be insufficient interest in the fact that there are so many dialects of English, even in the British Isles, that changing the spelling in one of them would cause confusion in the others. For example; revise the spelling of Glaswegian and ask a Cornishman to read it. Even people from Edinburgh will have a hard time understanding it. Webster wrote his prescriptive dictionary based on his own pronunciation and there's no reason to suppose that it was shared more widely that any other. John C Kay (talk) 03:17, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Biased article

Its my opinion that the Spelling Reform & English Spelling Reform articles are inteneded to discourage interest in the subject. It seems they were written, or at least modified, by somebody who is against the whole idea.

Generally, the articles are very tedious. Maybe this is an indirect result of the Wiki style and the fact that the whole subject of spelling is not exactly buxom babes on flying motorcycles, but it certainly will not keep your average grammer school student interested in persuing it after his report is turned in. Wether it is intentionally boring or not, the result is the same.

Evidence that the article is not neutral:

In the English section of the main Reform article, you will see that the 2nd half of it is clearly discouraging and concludes with a sentence & link refering to a parody of reform.

If someone were to click on the little link at the top of this section to get to the English Spelling Reform article, they will find only more discouragement:

Take a quick look at the WARNING boxes & notes in the English article. You will notice that the 1st 2 sentences have accuracy problem notes thrown in on very trivial issues, starting the reader off with a skeptical atttitude. The Reform Campaigns section has 3 big warning boxes in it. In contrast, the Obstacles and Criticisms sections, even tho the material is unsourced, has only the single [citation needed] which I added. The issues raised in these 2 sections are easily dismissed, yet I found that any refutations, or even references to further criticisms of reform with refutations, were deleted within a few days.

The Spelling Reform Campaigns section gives only links to some proposals with practically nothing about them, but finds the space to include a Successes in spelling complication subsection! Following it with a list of 11 'successfully' simplified words is not likely to give anybody an idea that there is any life in the subject. And in case somebody might still have some enthusiasm left for the subject, the failed Tribune campaign concludes the article.

To put some final nails in the coffin lid, the External Links section at the bottom includes at least 3 'humorous' webpages that basicly deride the idea of reform. At this point, I am suprised that my addition of a link to the Children of the Code site was not deleted.

Its seems to me that the average person reading these articles will be left with the impression that the subject is little more than a dusty old joke. Somebody who has a true interest in modern English spelling reform efforts will have wasted their time here.

Since I have an interest in this, I will be accused of being biased. Really, I wouldn't care, but since the Nooalf site gets quite a few visitors linking from here, people are obviously interested in the subject and looking to Wikipedia for information. The fact that Wiki has a very large web presence in general and on this subject requires that it be replaced with a truly unbised and complete article. With great power comes great responsibilty.JO 753 20:16, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually I find the article biased in the opposite direction, but you find what you're looking for I guess. In essence it needs to be rewritten from the bottom-up, or top-down, whichever you prefer. Re-written with good sources. I would suggest a new layout would be:

1. Lead
2. History (would cover a history of spelling reform in English, including something on the politics of reform)
3. General trends and approaches (would cover phonetic vs. phonemic, etc. — compare and contrast with other languages — probably Spanish and Serbo-Croatian would be useful in a European context, but also some details on the reform and standardisation — indeed "separation" of the Scandinavian languages — describing how reform is often linked to a standardisation and "distinction of language" process would be interesting)
4. Major proposals (more details on approximately 3 of the largest ones, with articles {{main}}'d out)
5. See also
6. References

I don't have time to research this, so if anyone makes any other choices they'd probably be very welcome. I seem to remember reading a book by Geoffrey Sampson that discussed this subject, with references. It would make a good start for anyone undertaking the task. - Francis Tyers · 08:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

A final note, splitting the article into "Arguments for" and "Arguments against" is a dreadful way of writing. - Francis Tyers · 08:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Somebody want to explain why they deleted the Children of the Code link?JO 753 16:35, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Because it isn't an appropriate external link. - Francis Tyers · 17:26, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Since the major reason there is any debate at all about spelling reform is ignorance of the cost of disorganized orthography, this is THE most important link in both articles. Seriously, it is the 800 pound gorrila in the room.JO 753 16:53, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, my main issue is that it reads like a propaganda site and I cannot find any of the references, particularly for the economic effects. Appropriate references, links etc. will look like this:

• Sylvia Defior and Pío Tudela (2005) "Effect of phonological training on reading and writing acquisition". Reading and Writing (Springer)
• HOLGER JUUL and BALDUR SIGURDSSON (2005) Orthography as a handicap? A direct comparison of spelling acquisition in Danish and Icelandic". Scandinavian Journal of Psychology Volume 46 Issue 3 Page 263-272
• Spencer, K. (2002) "English spelling and its contribution to illiteracy: word difficulty for common English words". Reading Literacy and Language Volume 36, Number 1, 1 April 2002 , pp. 16-25(10)

There is a wealth of information out there. I don't have the time to synthesise it into an article, but I am willing to help out a bit if you want. - Francis Tyers · 19:39, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

So your main objection is the style of the site. You have to keep in mind that its a large, well funded multimedia project, so its not going to look like the text only academic pages you are used to. Since the real material is presented in a bunch of videos, the text is mostly 'selling' the video material, and is thus a synopsis. It may seem alarmist to you because there is a reeeellly serious literacy problem here. A news story about a fire is not going to be presented like a stock report.71.194.49.234 03:55, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

To coin another analogy, it looks like they're trying to sell a molehill as a mountain ;) The main thing in your text that does alarm me slightly is "the text is mostly 'selling' the video material", presumably these people sell their "presentation"/videos etc. If so it isn't really appropriate for Wikipedia. Another thing that concerns me is the US-bias. This article is to do with spelling reform in English, and although the US has the largest population of English speakers, it is important to see (at least on an educational level — systems vary) what the "costs" are in other countries with English first language speakers: Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, the United Kingdom, South Africa etc. Some more references from the other side of the fence:

• B KESSLER (2003) "Is English Spelling Chaotic? Misconceptions concerning its irregularity" - Reading Psychology, 2003
• N. Chomsky & M. Halle, The Sound Pattern of English, Harper and Row, New York, NY, 1968.
• PT Smith (1980) "In Defence of Conservatism in English Orthography". Visible Language v14 n2 p122-36 1980

I really don't know how much of a literacy problem there is in the United States, but it occurs to me that the problem is mainly with the school system as opposed to any major difficulties with English orthography. It isn't particularly easy, in fact compared to Spanish or Serbo-Croatian it is quite hard, it is irregular and to be honest, I can see the benefit of orthographical reform. However, it should be noted that other countries with far harder writing systems (see for example Japanese orthography — three systems for one language) have extremely high levels of literacy. However, we should be discussing the page here, not the problem :)

Do you have any thoughts on how the page should be laid out, anew or in reference to my previous suggestion? - Francis Tyers · 07:07, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I didnt know Wiki policy extended to the sites it links to also. I think I hear the beginnings of a massive implosion! The CotC project is being done by non-profit organizations. Read the copywrite info at the bottom of the page.

People have been attempting to defend English spelling for centuries. The more highly educated they are, the more rediculous their arguments become. Unless you love modern art, a mess is a mess no matter how you look at it.

I dont know much about Japanese spelling. Maybe its complex, rather than disorganized? In any case its never a good argument to say 'thats worse so this is ok'.

My suggestion for the article would be to eliminate it and replace the English section in the general reform article with a few paragraphs about the historic and current attempts at reform. Unlike the other languages, English reform has yet to happen, so the current efforts are probably what most readers will be looking for. As you stated above, writing it as for & against is lousy, and in my opinion, not appropriate for Wiki.JO 753 06:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, if you are studying orthography, with a view to reform, it makes sense to look at the alternatives (I find Hangul particularly fascinating). I'm not saying the Japanese system is worse or better, I'm just saying that they have three systems, two syllabaries and one logographic system (Han characters). I'm not defending English spelling, its a pain in the arse, but I've yet to see a proposal for reform that I can wholeheartedly, or even partially-heartedly support. I think exaggerating the problems of English orthography are doing your cause more harm than good — although I admit that my experience of spelling hasn't ever been particularly troublesome. I'd agree that if the page cannot be improved it should be merged and re-directed into spelling reform. If you want to do it go ahead or let me know and I'll do it. - Francis Tyers · 07:24, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I do not agree with merging this article into Spelling reform. Noah Webster's changes to English spelling in America count as a reform in my book, and that alone deserves an article of its own. Reform proposals also deserve an article of their own, even if few people take them seriously. FilipeS 14:15, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

English reform was split off from the main article only recently. Before, it was the biggest chunk of the Spelling Reform article. As you can see, a trace of this is still left because the other languages are placed under the title 'Other Languages'. From the perspective of readers looking this up, that makes sense since this is the English version of Wiki and they will most likely type 'spelling reform' in the search rather than specifying 'English'. But I see your point, FilipeS. Theres a mountain of info on the subject, so how about a 'just the facts, mam' in the general reform article with links to reform sites and Wiki articles on the most notable efforts. This way the casual reader will not get inundated with minutiae and those who are really interested can pick which direction they want to go.

Francis, I am not exagerating the problems caused by this mess. You should take some time to watch the videos on Children of the Code. I never had any more of a problem with spelling than the average person does, but alot of people do. If you compare the amount of effort we put into learning & using it compared to languages with good spelling systems, such as Korean, you start to get an inkling of the magnitude of the problem.JO 753 16:32, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

If you have any good papers on the economic aspects of the lack of spelling reform I would love to read them. - Francis Tyers · 14:43, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, I was the one who moved most of what was at Spelling reform here. I felt that the previous version of the other article overloaded the reader with information (some of it questioned), and why do that when there was also this article, specifically about spelling reforms in English, with free room?...

If your suggestion is that the text on the main article should be rewritten to give a clearer picture of the basic facts about spelling reform in English, then that sounds quite reasonable. Go for it! FilipeS 20:30, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I feel that my time will be wasted, since Bobet or Francis will delete nearly anything I do. Being knowledgeable about reform makes me biased in their view. I am also quite knowledgable about mechanical design, machining, the Terminator movies & the Simpsons, so shouldn't write about them either. Much better to have someone with a few days of casual Googling write about a subject than risk the appearance of an opinion.JO 753 09:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

What makes you think we will delete it? If you write in accordance with Wikipedia policies, using reliable sources (I've listed some starting points above), there will be no problem. If you feel the content or source might be contentious, feel free to discuss it on the talk page first. - Francis Tyers · 14:41, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Take the Children of the Code link for example. An elementary aspect of reform is illiteracy, and you are not going to find a site that presents the problem more thuroughly. Yet you, who admits "I don't have time to research this" deletes it. From what you have written so far, it looks as if you haven't bothered to do more than glance over the intro page. If you had, you would have noticed that they are also avoiding the reform issue and blaming teachers, parents & poverty. So, why do you think I could write an entire article without running afoul of the editorial policies if even this one little link fails to satisfy you?

On top of this, in order to write a decent article, I would have to include some work from my own site, since none of my predecesors or contemporaries have thought beyond the most obvious (and often erroneous) notions of reform strategy, so you would immediatly hack the whole thing to gibberish or delete it as original material.

So my suggestion is that FilipeS should write it. Filipe, you are hereby given permission to use anything from Nooalf. The future of Spelling and theres a bunch of guys in the saundspel forum who will very enthusiasticly help if you have questions. (Try Gus Hasselquist 1st)JO 753 19:40, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

But you still haven't presented any reliable sources on the economic impact of unreformed spelling on the US, or world economies, or even the economy of a single state. Where are the studies, where are the reports ? If the problem is so big surely something must have been written about it, a paper, or a monograph ? Not even a letter to the editor in a respected journal of linguistics, writing systems or orthography? - Francis Tyers · 07:15, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Here we go again - Wikipedians like their 'reliable sources,' their tired nostrums. George Bernard Shaw was acutely aware of the economic angle - he spoke of 'forests being cut down' to accommodate the extravagant peccadilloes of English spelling. But you don't need to be a genius to acknowledge that, for example, silent and surplus letters in English, repeated a million times over, monthly, must account for massive waste of paper, print, or their electronic alternatives, not to mention the education needed to instil them in the first place.--86.31.105.33 (talk) 19:04, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Maybe there arent any? CotC doesnt directly blame the bad orthography, but it is chock full of PhDs and other experts. I just got hi speed, so will watch all the videos this weekend.JO 753 21:55, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I'm sorry, but I don't think I would be comfortable rewriting this article, as I don't know much about this topic. It would be better if the opposing sides here could reach some agreement. You could discuss possible rewrites here in the Talk Page first. Regards. FilipeS 01:02, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I find this article rather biased in favour of reform at present. The criticisms section is much too short as well, and each of the criticisms is dismissed in short order, using arguments that an opponent of reform can immediately think of several counter-arguments for.

I think Francis Tyers's layout proposal for a new structure to the article is a very good one, as is the suggestion that more references to actual research be used - there is so much of it out there! Hundreds of people with a thorough grounding in their field have been devoting the matter a great deal of thought, devising countless experiments, and producing thousands upon thousands of scholarly papers and books for decades. Anyone who wants to form an objective view on reform, and in particular on whether more "phonological" spelling systems actually do produce higher levels of literacy or not, must look at these actual results. You cannot justify ignoring expert opionion when it goes against yours, or calling arguments ridiculous because they use concepts and issues that you haven't spent the best part of your life studying or because they raise issues that you don't deem relevant enough - the relative relevancy of the many advantages and drawbacks of reforming the spelling one way, reforming it another, or not reforming it at all, is an integral part of the whole debate.

And finally, if reasons of economy are invoked to justify reform, surely the costs of reform should be brought into the picture as well? 89.164.29.166 (talk) 15:15, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I haven't yet read through all of the above, but the article is currently very biased in favour of spelling reform. Whereas there is a section 'Arguments for reform', those containing arguments against are called 'Obstacles' (implying an irritating nuisance) and Criticism (implying, also by its paragraphed format, potentially more woolly or subjective content). There should simply be 'Arguments against reform'. The list of well-known reformers coming between the former and the latter two sections is also extremely bizarre and biased. Further, the arguments for reform wildly contain terms such as 'Many' (scholarly miscorrections -- there are not very many and there is no evidence that the example given (island) developed anything other than unconsciously) and 'Almost all' (reforms would shorten words -- very uncertain given the number of diphthongs etc.). Salopian (talk) 02:45, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

O.K., I've read this section now. I think that for and against sections would really be fine, or at least preferable to the current sections, since the issue is so partisan. However, I see people's point about that sort of structure. Nevertheless, the tone certainly needs changing from the current one (especially 'Obstacles'). Any information about the cost of current orthography also needs to be balanced by mention of the cost of changing it. While I can accept that in theory the latter might be lower, in practice I find this extremely unlikely and thus if there are any studies about that (marketing the idea to the extent of winning the English-speaking world over, re-educating all of the existing population, transliterating all existing texts from all time etc.) they need to be included too.

On Children of the Code, apart from being a truly horribly designed website (its layout would make it very hard for anyone with the slightest reading problems), it does not seem to be directly related to this article -- it is about literacy. Even if it talks about spelling reform somewhere in its jumbled mess, it's not relevant enough for a direct link from this article. Salopian (talk) 08:42, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

The article doesn't cite nearly enough sources. I think I saw like...two, total. But to support the general claim that there's a bias issue here, I bring up the fact that the Criticism section is laced with counter-opinions of that criticism. Which, since there are no sources credited to them, count as 'unverified claims' and/or 'original research'. Mikhajlovich (talk) 01:02, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Worldwide

Eh? Why does it need a more worldwide view? The article discusses activities in places where the language has the most speakers. True, it doesn't mention the Falkland Islands or Singapore, but it needn't unless those places have prominent agitators for or against spelling reform. Jim.henderson 12:53, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that its silly to have a general requirement for a worldwide view on every subject. But, since English is virtually everywhere and has actual effects on nearly everybody, a general worldwide opinion on its spelling would be relevant to this article.JO 753 13:55, 12 September 2007 (UTC)JO753

Worldwide view? Spelling bee is a bizarre thing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.101.76.122 (talk) 00:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Another article

Nick C. Ellis and A. Mari Hooper, "Why learning to read is easier in Welsh than in English: Orthgraphic transparency effects evinced with frequency-matched tests", Applied Psycholinguistics 22: 571-599, 2001.

This study compared the rate of literacy acquisition in orthographically transparent Welsh and orthographically opaque English using reading tests that were equated for frequency of written exposure. Year 2 English-educated monolingual children were compared with Welsh-educated bilingual children, matched for reading instruction, background, locale, and math ability. Welsh children were able to read aloud accurately significantly more of their language (61% of tokens, 1821 types) than were English children (52% tokens, 716 types), allowing them to read aloud beyond their comprehension levels (168 vs. 116%, respectively). Various observations suggested that Welsh readers were more reliant on an alphabetic decoding strategy: word length determined 70% of reading latency in Welsh but only 22% in English, and Welsh reading errors tended to be nonword mispronunciations, whereas English children made more real word substitutions and null attempts. These findings demonstrate that the orthographic transparency of a language can have a profound effect on the rate of acquisition and style of reading adopted by its speakers.

Would be interesting to include something on this. - Francis Tyers · 13:23, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.72.168.245 (talk) 21:45, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

And why would reading aloud beyond their comprehension levels be something that should be valued? It seems that that is likely to mislead teachers as to what the children do and don't understand. Salopian (talk) 00:20, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

At Salopian: That is a good point. As a teacher of learning disabilities in English (with 25 years of experience), there are many students who are excellent decoders, but do not understand what they read too. A reformed system that would improve decoding would require less time spent on decoding and more time on checking if comprehension has been attained. Let's not forget the cumulative aspect of a reform. New learners will be able to connect written words with spoken words. An innocent mention of a new word in a conversation will be more likely linked to its use in a written text, improving the chances of being understood in one additional context.Pierrejcd (talk) --Pierrejcd (talk) 07:08, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

The question of intelligence

Let's be honest. When people post on the internet, they are often attacked for their spelling and grammar. The implication is that the posters must be wrong and/or stupid. I believe the bias mentioned above is real and also that it exists strongly in many Wikipedia editors, who tend to be overly proud of their 'command' of English. When it comes to a new system, you may bet money these editors will be among the loudest opponents. Please see my notes under Scripps National Spelling Bee, where editors repeatedly refused to accept my point as a 'main criticism' of the Bee.Ykral (talk) 13:50, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this attitude would be difficult to change any time soon. English-speaking children are indoctrinated from an early age with the belief that spelling in English is something that must be learnt, failure to master English spelling leads to unfavourable treatment by society, and the children are not encouraged to take a critical view of English spelling.

However, recent studies of dyslexia show that the impact of that disability is directly proportional to the orthographic complexity of the language being read, and that simpler orthographies reduce the impact of that disability almost to the point where the disability is no longer an impairment (see here). These studies may make it possible in the near future for dyslexics to file a class-action lawsuit against the government of one or more major English-speaking countries on the grounds of not doing enough to make the orthography of English more accessible to them. Buildings now have wheelchair ramps, and walkways in many places are marked with raised strips for the benefit of the blind. A simpler orthography for English would offer the same benefit to dyslexics. -- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 00:32, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Interesting reply, thank you. My thoughts were that children can then think more about other ('rational') subjects, but your point about dyslexics and legality is certainly worthy. Perhaps when 'grammar' is spelled 'gramr', they will have an easier time.Ykral (talk) 23:45, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Also in reply to B.D.Mills' interesting contribution, above, it occurred to me that it is odd, is it not, that schools which devote so much time to the faculty of criticism, especially in the arts, don't extend it to the spelling system the books are in?--86.31.105.33 (talk) 18:14, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Combine obstacles and criticism

Most of the content of "criticism" is repeated from the "obstacles" section. Also obviously any obstacle represents a valid criticism, though the reverse may not be true. Any dissent? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.73.224.163 (talk) 18:46, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this should definitely be done. People should also not make wild unsupported assertions attempting to undermine each obstacle/criticism within those sections ("Most people..."). Salopian (talk) 00:17, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Merging some of the Obstacles with some of the Criticism section is a good idea, and would improve the article. I have already done this with some of the obstacles, which were just straight criticism. Some of the remaining obstacles should be moved elsewhere in the article, and some of it should be deleted unless supporting references can be found. -- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 08:04, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Removing specious "obstacles"

The following unreferenced and dubious claims were removed by me:

• English contains numerous non-homographic homophones, far more than non-homophonic homographs. Thus spelling reform would introduce more ambiguity than it would remove. This is false. Languages with orthographies that are otherwise highly phonemic generally distinguish homophones in spelling, eg: Spanish - se = third person reflexive pronoun / sé = I know; Italian - anno = year, hanno = I have; Greek - η = the / ή = or. There is no evidence to suggest that English spelling reform will require the merger of all homophones.
• Spelling reform would make it harder for native English speakers to learn French and German (and to a lesser extent other European languages), as many identical or related spellings would be changed. Not true or not relevant. Most languages spell the Greek letter phi (φ) as "f" and not "ph"; apart from English only French uses "ph". If all "ph" digraphs were respelt as "f" in English, over a dozen European languages would arguably be easier to learn, and more to the point the speakers of these languages would find English easier to learn. The word "island" is spelt as "Eiland" in Dutch and German (these words are all from the same Germanic roots), so a spelling reform that cut out the redundant "s" would make this Dutch and German word easier to spell. The common word suffix -tion is spelt as -çion in Portuguese, but this doesn't make Portuguese any harder to learn once the meaning of the -çion root is learnt. This "easier to learn foreign languages" argument is thus a specious claim.
• Some very closely related words would be spelt less similarly than they are at present, such as electric, electricity and electrician, or (with full vowel reform) photo, photograph and photography. This claim is false because it ignores the vast number of words in English where this is already the case, such as action/active, retain/retention, deceit/deception. A reform that spelt the photo root in photo, photograph and photography in different ways according to pronunciation would not be any more difficult than learning the different spellings of the root in action/active, retain/retention, deceit/deception and many other such words.

-- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 00:51, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree with you. But the common word suffix -tion is actually spelt as -ção in Portuguese. Lupo Azzurro (talk) 16:34, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

No, your arguments against those points are insufficient, and come down to giving a few counter-examples -- in each case there would be many more examples where spelling reform would be problematic. In the last case, you completely undermine the argument for spelling reform, by saying that some spellings of related words differ so we may as well have some more! You need to remember that this page is not a chance for you to propagandise about spelling reform -- you cannot delete points just because you don't like them. Salopian (talk) 23:58, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I deleted unreferenced material of dubious accuracy. Wikipedia editors do this all the time. Deal with it: if you think they should be in the article, the onus is on you to provide reliable references and make the points stand up to scrutiny.

The points were incorrect; I merely provided a few examples because I lacked the time for a more in-depth coverage of the topic. (I'll remind you that many Wikipedia editors routinely delete unreferenced material of dubious accuracy without providing any explanation, and they are right to do so.) The text implied -- quite incorrectly -- that these issues are common to all spelling reform proposals. This is demonstrably incorrect if one takes the time to become acquainted with various proposals.

For example, the first point said this: "English contains numerous non-homographic homophones, far more than non-homophonic homographs. Thus spelling reform would introduce more ambiguity than it would remove." Axel Wijk in his 1959 book Regularized English proposed a respelling of only 10% to 15% of all words and retained a variety of graphemes like ee, ea (for the same sound as ee), igh and so on while making them more regular. In Wijk's proposal, most non-homographic homophones would be retained. Another example are Theodore Roosevelt's spelling reforms from the early 20th century; it was a spelling reform, but was just a list of about 300 words with revised spellings -- many of which, like prolog and program are now the standard spelling in American English.

The point about foreign speakers learning English is unreferenced and is at best a dubious assertion. What studies, references and the like are there to support this? Are there counterarguments to this point that merit inclusion as well?

As for the third point, it is of a similar kind to the first: it is heavily dependent on the reform proposal under consideration and it is misleading to imply that all proposals would impose this difficulty -- if it can even be shown to be a difficulty by way of verifiable and reliable references backed up by research.

Stating that the arguments are "insufficient" is not justifiable, because the arguments to support the points were not robust enough to merit their retention in an encyclopedia article. These points claimed specious "difficulties" without providing details, nor were specific examples given, nor were references provided. Thus I feel quite comfortable deleting this material. I will note that I left the rest of the arguments mostly intact. -- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 12:20, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I see that you have reinstated this material without paying due attention to the issues I raised when I originally deleted it. Rather than delete the material again, I have chosen to amend it to remove potential inaccuracy, and also reduce bias. I still find the "foreign language" point particularly weak, however I have retained it. -- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 13:32, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

The rest of the article is so chaotic and largely unreferenced that I felt it would not be a sensible use of my time to make the part that you would probably find an excuse to remove anyway more referenced than any other part. If I did not magically know that some proposals were a bizarre mish-mash of uniform and non-uniform spelling, that is the fault of the writers of the rest of the article, not me.

It is not actually common or good practice for editors to delete unreferenced material unless it is very obviously dubious. The proper thing to do is to add an 'lacks references' tag, which the whole article has already earned due to its sorry state. Salopian (talk) 06:53, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

The Obstacles you raised do not fit in that section. They seem to fit better in the Criticism section.

It is worth mentioning that you chose to tag a lot of material in the article as needing references (and fair enough, IMO). However, you also neglected to provide any references for your own new material (which is not good). If you're going to require others to provide references, you must also be willing to provide references for your own material.

As I had already said, I didn't want to spend the time providing citations when based upon your previous behaviour in the article I didn't trust you to not just delete whole swathes without good reason. Salopian (talk) 06:35, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I deleted a fair bit of original research (OR) from the article in accordance with long-standing Wikipedia policy. This article is particularly vulnerable to original research: some people want to discuss their own pet schemes for reform, and people can make passionate contributions to both sides of the debate and forget the need to provide reliable citations. Therefore, a ruthless policy against OR is necessary - particularly for the "my scheme for reform" contributions - so that the article can be transformed over time from a disorganised article full of OR into a quality article. If your own pet contribution got the chop, its because it didn't stand up to scrutiny.

It is fundamentally lazy to add material to an article and then leave it to others to find the references. Other editors are not mind readers. If you have a source, cite it. A particularly good source can also provide citations for other parts of the article in places where citations are needed. I never delete material that has adequate citations. You really have no right to make complaints about the "behaviour" of other editors deleting your material when you keep inserting unreferenced material and not providing any citations for it. When I find the time to edit this article, I am endeavouring to provide citations for any new material that I add. You should do the same.-- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 03:56, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that the article needs a lot of work. I have started rewriting large sections of it. So far I have created a new stub History section (with references), rewritten the Criticisms section with new material and deleted some material from there that didn't really belong. (I haven't provided enough references yet for the revisions to that section but I think that section reads a lot better.) -- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 12:00, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Lupo, thank you for your correction to the Portuguese suffix -ção. It is appreciated. -- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 12:21, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposed merger

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

The article English spelling reform lists 10 proposals, while the article List of English spelling reform proposals adds only 3 proposals more; the latter could easily be added to the former article (which incidentally is not exceedingly long). Apcbg (talk) 17:32, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

• Merge per nom, as far as the article size is concerned. --Soumyabrata (talk • subpages) 07:18, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

• I lie, there was a clear consensus to merge the two. --Soumya-8974 ^talk _contribs ^subpages 08:46, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Complication

The article false etymology has a stale link here:

"Over time, many words have been altered in order to better reflect false Latin or Greek etymologies. Island (previously iland) and ptarmigan (previously tarmigan) are two such words. See English spelling reform—successes in spelling complication."

Since this discussion has been deleted, where is a more appropriate replace to redirect? Or should the link just be deleted? Dcoetzee 01:35, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The best approach here is to delete the stale link, then for each listed word provide a reference to its etymology. -- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 04:14, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Tense in the article

The article is very biased by saying things along the lines of "... spelling reform will..." and "... before spelling reform can succeed." These indicate that spelling reform will definitely occur at some point. Please make sure to use "would" and "could" instead. Salopian (talk) 00:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

We as editors should be careful to be consistent on this point. Do not assume that spelling reform will definitely occur, nor assume that it definitely won't occur, nor take the view that it should be encouraged or discouraged. It is important to be balanced. -- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 08:33, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

"Would" and "could" do not assume that it won't occur, so you haven't added anything to what I had already said. Salopian (talk) 06:30, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

@B.d.mills: I have just changed all the future tense verbs to conditionals in § False friends, and that was before I saw this comment. Salopian, "would" and "could" also do not assume that it will occur, and that is the crucial difference. --Thnidu (talk) 21:51, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Thnidu, your wording implies that you are contradicting or adding to something I had said, but that is absolutely false. You simply agreed with me. Salopian

no mention of nearly accepted UK standard New Spelling

New Spelling came very close to being accepted as the standard. It was presented to the British parliament in 1949 and rejected by only 87 votes to 84. Another bill actually passed its first stage reading in 1953, but was withdrawn after opposition by the Minister for Education. http://www.e-speec.com/new.htm --Espoo (talk) 07:14, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The History section of the article needs some expansion on the history of English-language spelling reform post-1920. In general, such history would (probably) show a waning interest on the matter with occasional attempts by legislatures to impose remedies. Your reference above would be useful if it is supported by print references. Australia in the 1970's actually succeeded with a legislated spelling reform for a few years. This reform spelt all /e/ with "e" so "health" became "helth" (see SR1). This reform was subsequently repealed by a conservative government. -- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 04:11, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Article Redo

I attepted to remove some of the article′s bias and streamline it with an edit. Tell me if I am way off. Stephen Lee Williamson (talk) 02:34, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

'Citation needed' to prove the existence of vested interests opposed to reform?

Someone has placed a 'Citation needed' tab in the bit in the intro which refers to commercial interests in opposition to English spelling reform. There is an ambiguity here: is the editor questioning whether those who sell English dictionaries and materials propounding shorthand, synthetic phonics, Sayspel and remedial literacy texts benefit from the complexities of traditional English spelling, or whether that is their intention? If the latter, it is something they would scarcely ever admit to; if the former, the commercial conflict of interests is surely self-evident, on examination?--86.31.105.33 (talk) 10:06, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Reformist Article?

I just noticed that in the "History" section someone has spelled "Although" "Altho" (within parentheses). In fact, the sentence beginning with "Oxford" seems to make little sense, and should at least be written with more clarity. Also, given that someone spelled "Whether" "Wether" in the discussion forum, I'm beginning to think there's a bit of reform going on in this article. Please someone clean it up if you have the time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aer9998 (talk • contribs) 12:58, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

"Spelt" and "Spelled"

User:Joefromrandb has twice switcht all instances of "spelt" to "spelled", insisting that "spelt" is "archaic". That may be true in your part of the US, but here in Ireland, and in Britain, the word is commonly written "spelt" and spoken as such. As far as I can see, "spelt" (rather than "spelled") was the original spelling used in this article. Per WP:RETAIN, the spelling in an article shouldn't be switcht from one kind to another without good reason. Thus, "spelt" should be kept. ~Asarlaí 18:17, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

No, it shouldn't. This isn't an WP:ENGVAR situation. Your original research notwithstanding, the several dictonaries I've checked list "spelt" as a second pronounciation in the UK. If an article said "thrice", should we not change it to "three times" because "thrice is a real word and that was the original spelling used in the article"? BTW, is "uzed" another spelling variation with which I'm not familiar? How about "switcht"? Do people really say and write "switcht" instead of "switched" in Ireland and Britain? I realize that you enjoy using obsolete speech. I actually think that is a good thing; just not in Wikipedia articles. Articles should be written in simple, everyday prose rather than Elizabethan English. I'm not the first editor to make this change. Joefromrandb (talk) 18:44, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

BTW, as another editor noted above, using spellings such as "altho" for "although" and "wether" for "whether" make it seem like there is some attempt at reform taking place within the article. This article is to explain proposed spelling-reforms to our readers, rather than soapbox for it. --Joefromrandb (talk) 19:19, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

"Spelt" might be Elizabethan English to you, but here and in Britain it's modern, everyday English. Just because you (seemingly) don't see it in your part of the US doesn't mean it's non-existent or wrong. I don't know how "altho" and "wether" got into the article but I agree that we should use standard spellings. Also, we're here to talk about the article, not to poke fun at others for the way they write (whether it be wilfull or not). I could do likewise for your writing "you're" and "diictionaries" but I think that would be bad form. ~Asarlaí 19:21, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

It isn't bad form at all. Thank you for pointing out that I wrote "diictionaries". Because you pointed it out, I was able to correct it. Your statement that "spelt is moodern, everyday English" is original research. Joefromrandb (talk) 19:26, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Also, I never said "spelt" was "non-existant or wrong". It certainly exists, and it isn't wrong. Just like "switcht" exists and isn't wrong. It's still obsolete, just as "spelt" is still not listed as a UK-first-prononuciation in any dictionary I've checked. I realize that you and your friends may use it; that doesn't make it ideal to use in an article. And you really should AGF. I was not poking fun at you. --Joefromrandb (talk) 19:39, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

"Simultaneous" as example of "Whose accent?"

The article states: "Reformers point-out [and by the way, why is there a hyphen there?] that current English spelling sometimes favors one dialect or pronunciation over others. For example, the first syllable in simultaneously can be pronounced like the first syllable in simple (/sɪ/) or like the first syllable in cycle (/saɪ/), but current spelling favors the former."

This is simply untrue. Other words beginning with si- are pronounced /saɪ/: siphon, size, Simon, silo... Thus the current spelling of "simultaneous/ly" is ideal, as it allows both pronunciations and favours neither. The only possible complaint about it is that it is ambiguous, which is a different problem. This section should therefore be replaced with a real example. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.0.60.75 (talk) 16:56, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

removing "cognates in other languages" table

Two of the table's three examples are from Japanese, but Japanese is not written in Latin script and thus is invalid as a source of examples demonstrating the orthographies of other languages that use the Latin script. Striking these two entries leaves only one, which wouldn't really qualify as a table. I'm removing it altogether. Anyone who wants to try to resurrect this table will need valid examples. (In truth the entire argument needs a source, but I'm just removing the table.) 108.206.152.174 (talk) 12:45, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Definition of spelling reform

In the article English-language spelling reform, it says that "Spelling reformers seek to make English spelling more consistent and more phonetic." whereas in the article Spelling reform, it says that spelling reform is "where a deliberate...change to spelling takes place."

Neither definition includes a citation. I'm in favour of the 2nd definition, because it seems to follow directly from the definitions of spelling and reform. The 1st definition would not include people who wish to allow more inconsistency in English spelling (such as Simon Horobin) and people who wish to revise spelling based on morphological considerations over phonetic considerations. Throughme (talk) 19:35, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Spelling reform means deliberately switching from one spelling system to another, usually to make things more consistent. Simon Horobin isn't proposing this. He's saying that people should be given more leeway when it comes to spelling, that "English spelling is evolving and English speakers should let it". It's a hands-off rather than a hands-on approach. ~Asarlaí 20:06, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Horobin is proposing that we deliberately switch from a system of spelling each word in one way to a system of spelling words in multiple ways. It's a hands-off reform, allowing more choice, in the same sense that education reforms can allow more choice for how students learn, market reforms can allow more choice for what people produce and consume, and feminist reforms can allow more choice for how women live their lives. Throughme (talk) 20:44, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I suppose there's no harm in mentioning it in the article. However, I'm not sure we shud be treating it as an English spelling reform proposal, because it goes agenst the usual meaning of "English spelling reform". Merriam-Webster defines "spelling reform" as "a movement to modify conventional spelling so as to lessen or remove the differences between the orthography and the pronunciation of words". Likewize, Random House Dictionary defines it as "an attempt to change the spelling of English words to make it conform more closely to pronunciation". ~Asarlaí 14:58, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for showing me those definitions. I've added Horobin's proposal back in, and included a caveat that mentions Random House and Merriam-Webster. Throughme (talk) 21:29, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

New Reference Available

Robin Randall - The Kleer English Dictionary, 2012 Available via Lulu Press explores rules leading to Spelling Reform RLRandallx 19:21, 9 Dec 2013 (UTC) 67.188.92.176 (talk) 03:24, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

English Loanwords in German

To https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_reform#Cognates_in_other_languages. You might be interested to know that the "nationalisation" of English loanwords in German are frequent sources of spelling mistakes. Hobby is taken from English and its plural often as well: Hobbies. German spelling is Hobbys however. Similarly with the pseuso loanword Handy for mobile phone, with a false plural Handies instead of Handys. A similar case is the wrong but frequent German usage of the English genitive apostrophe. – Fritz Jörn (talk) 08:29, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

"Australian Ministry of Helth" only used informally

"Australian Ministry of Helth" was only used informally, see Minister_for_Health_(Australia) (as of 3 January 2014), the statement that under the Whitlam government The Department of Health was known as the "Ministry of Helth" is incorrect. "Ministry" in Australia is never used to describe a government Department, it is only used to describe a tenure of a Minister (e.g. "During So-and-so's ministry ...") — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brunswicknic (talk • contribs) 11:21, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Turkish Aphabet

Those who want a reform should check Turkish alphabet out. It is already what you are looking for.--95.12.116.99 (talk) 19:10, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

English has many more vowels than Turkish, the Turkish alphabet would not fit English phonology well at all. Psiĥedelisto (talk) 07:30, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on English-language spelling reform. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j25/feynman.php
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060901063613/http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/preface.html to http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/preface.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 15:36, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on English-language spelling reform. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060901063613/http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/preface.html to http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/preface.html
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090217173652/http://www.rightingthemothertongue.com/ to http://www.rightingthemothertongue.com/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 06:36, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Article Bias in 'Obstacles and criticisms' section

It is very obvious from the writing style employed in the 'Obstacles and criticisms' section that the author is an advocate of spelling reform. It is written more like a persuasive essay rather than a neutral description of the obstacles proposed spelling reforms face.

Examples such as: "Likewise, the irregular spelling of very common words, such as is, are, have, done and of makes it difficult to fix them without introducing a noticeable change to the appearance of English text. This would create acceptance issues. Yet, if the educated public is not targeted, it should not."

" If the changes target a new generation of learners, these differences could be homogenized and unified in one system making English one true language that can be understood by all its speakers."

"Some reformers would avoid these confusions completely. No literate person familiar with the current system would be required to learn the new system. The reform would be generational and happen in parallel for one generation. The reform would be introduced in schools first, starting at the Grade 1 level in the first year. The next year, another cohort would go to school and be taught the new spelling system, and the previous year's Grade 1 would continue to learn using the spelling system that they learned in their first year. This reform would take 12 years to implement, giving time for programmers to make transcoding programs that could transcode any text (on the internet or from digital files) into the old or the new spelling system, as needed. This would of course require a vastly improved image-to-text technology (such as OCR) than is available currently, as is demonstrated by the appalling standard of accuracy in scanning and converting to text for most books not published using modern fonts, or including foreign language passages using accents and other marks other than those regularly occurring in the most common languages with the best developed graphics-to-text technologies. "

Present the author's subjective opinion on reforms and how they could be carried out as opposed to outlining objective facts or obstacles.

I am not quite sure how to fix this issue, but hope that someone can!

156.34.173.224 (talk) 23:53, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

To add to my previous post, I've removed the sentence in bold here because they have obviously been added in later and are biased. The rest of the section still needs work though.

• Public resistance to spelling reform has been consistently strong, at least since the early 19th century, when spelling was codified by the influential English dictionaries of Samuel Johnson (1755) and Noah Webster (1806). Yet, not many people know that some reformers would target new learners and not force the educated public to learn a new system.

• English vocabulary is mostly a melding of Germanic, French, Latin and Greek words, which have very different phonemes and approaches to spelling. Some reform proposals tend to favour one approach over the other, resulting in a large percentage of words that must change spelling to fit the new scheme. If the reform targeted new learners, these would not know about the differences.

• Some inflections are pronounced differently in different words. For example, plural -s and possessive -'s are both pronounced differently in cat(')s (/s/) and dog(')s (/z/). The handling of this particular difficulty distinguishes morphemic proposals, which tend to spell such inflectional endings the same, from phonemic proposals that spell the endings according to their pronunciation. These endings pose few issues in understanding the content (decoding and literacy). These differences in pronunciation are rule based Voice phonetics

• English is the only one of the top ten major languages that lacks a worldwide regulatory body with the power to promulgate spelling changes. Yet, it could be created. There is an English Spelling Society.

• The spellings of some words – such as tongue and stomach – are so unindicative of their pronunciation that changing the spelling would noticeably change the shape of the word. Likewise, the irregular spelling of very common words, such as is, are, have, done and of makes it difficult to fix them without introducing a noticeable change to the appearance of English text. This would create acceptance issues. Yet, if the educated public is not targeted, it should not.

• Phonetic spelling reform could result in a multitude of different versions of written English, largely unintelligible across different accent-groups. Scottish writers might not be read by Indians. Americans would write whut and British wot for the same word. If the changes target a new generation of learners, these differences could be homogenized and unified in one system making English one true language that can be understood by all its speakers.

• Spelling reform may make pre-reform writings harder to understand and read in their original form, often necessitating transcription and republication. Even today, few people choose to read old literature in the original spellings as most of it has been republished in modern spellings.[31] Yet, we know live in a digital world. It is much easier to transcode than to translate and there are many translations of books. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.34.173.224 (talk) 01:27, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I also removed this section included under the the 'False Friends' subheading. This is very unrelated to the subheading and is very obviously someone making an argument and explaining a possible reform strategy, not giving an impartial overview of issue related to reform.

Some reformers would avoid these confusions completely. No literate person familiar with the current system would be required to learn the new system. The reform would be generational and happen in parallel for one generation. The reform would be introduced in schools first, starting at the Grade 1 level in the first year. The next year, another cohort would go to school and be taught the new spelling system, and the previous year's Grade 1 would continue to learn using the spelling system that they learned in their first year. This reform would take 12 years to implement, giving time for programmers to make transcoding programs that could transcode any text (on the internet or from digital files) into the old or the new spelling system, as needed. This would of course require a vastly improved image-to-text technology (such as OCR) than is available currently, as is demonstrated by the appalling standard of accuracy in scanning and converting to text for most books not published using modern fonts, or including foreign language passages using accents and other marks other than those regularly occurring in the most common languages with the best developed graphics-to-text technologies. This means that, until this problem is solved, all who have learnt the new system would not have access to such books. The first cohorts would need to learn to read public signs that would not be transcoded. People in the workforce not familiar with the new code or the old code would be able to use transcoding programs that would transcode on the fly whatever documents would be needed to be decoded.[35] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.34.173.224 (talk) 01:40, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Can someone rewrite the section in their sandboxes? —Yours sincerely, Soumyabrata (talk • subpages)

I did have one specific issue with "English vocabulary is mostly a melding of Germanic, French, Latin and Greek words, which have very different phonemes and approaches to spelling. Some reform proposals tend to favour one approach over the other, resulting in a large percentage of words that must change spelling to fit the new scheme." It would seem to me that a spelling reform that did not favor one of the existing orthographic conventions already at use within English would simply ensure that an even larger proportion of words in English would be spelled differently under the new system. However, in general, I do not agree that there is a serious issue with bias in this article as it stands. Large-scale spelling reform proposals have met with little success in the past, and are likely to do the same in the future; it is not "bias" that this article was not written by an enthusiastic proponent of spelling reform attempting as far as possible to minimize this fact, sad as it may be. Quadibloc (talk) 14:25, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

"English reform" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect English reform. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:22, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

"some attempt genuine phonetic spelling" -- Can this be true???

Phonetic spelling of any variety of English would be extraordinarily complex, and applying that complexity to all varieties would generate a plethora of differentiated orthographies. Surely what's intended is phonemic spelling. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 15:44, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 14 July 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus (non-admin closure) Ⓩⓟⓟⓘⓧ _Talk 15:10, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

---

English-language spelling reform → Spelling reform of English – Consistent with History of English, List of dialects of English, Reforms of French orthography, etc. Soumya-8974 ^talk _contribs ^subpages 08:44, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

• FYI: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages/Archive 14 § Requested move 15 March 2020. Nardog (talk) 10:28, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
• oppose From the instructions for article titles: For most topics, there is a simple and obvious title that meets these goals satisfactorily. If so, use it as a straightforward choice. IMO English-language spelling reform fits that nicely. With English first, language-specific search is facilitated. If anything, I'd argued that Reforms of French orthography should be moved to French spelling reform (or French-language...) on grounds of ease and simplicity. (Leaving English-language spelling reform as is also jibes with the principle "If it ain't broke, don't fix it.") Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 02:28, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

---

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"English language reform" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect English language reform. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 December 8#English language reform until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Soumya-8974 (he) ^talk _contribs ^subpages 08:18, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

change the opening line

this isnt a fricking izzzyzzz video, this is wikipedia. the beginning should be something like "an english-language spelling reform is [blah, blah, blah]"

we don't need to hook the readers or whatever, its not uniform with other wikipedia articles STIK2009 (talk) 14:57, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Verification of Ache Respelling

The Merriam Webster entry for "ache" supports the explanation that it was changed from "ake" due to a misunderstanding about it being related to a Greek word. Does anything else need to happen to verify this and cite it?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ache Xybreus (talk) 08:14, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

"Nooalf" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Nooalf has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 March 7 § Nooalf until a consensus is reached. Jalen Folf (talk) 09:46, 7 March 2024 (UTC)