История английского языка

                 Historical Foundations of Modern English Spelling 

The alphabetic way of writing was originally based on a phonetic principle: it was designed to give an accurate graphic representation of pronunciation by using letters to indicate sounds. Mod E spelling displays many deviations from this principle. The reasons are to be found in the history of English sounds.                                                                                                         OE spelling was phonetic: they attempted to use a separate letter for each distinct sound; the sound values of the letters were for the most part the same as in Latin. Their spellings, however, were not absolutely consistent, for some letters indicated two or more sounds: the letter ‘s’ stood for four different phonemes, c — for two; f, ძ, Þ and s indicated two allophones each (which developed into phonemes later).                                                                             ME spelling innovations incorporated many sound changes which had taken place since the 9th — 10th c and spelling become more ambiguous and conventional.   In many instances; the one-to-one correspondence of letter and sound had been lost. Morel letters than before had two sound values: 0 stood for [o],   [u], long o and [0:]; c — for [s] and [k]; g — for [g] and [dз], etc.; u could even indicate three sounds — the vowels [u] and [y] and the consonant [v]. One and the same sound was commonly shown by different means: [dз] could be indicated by g, j or dg, [k] —by k, c and q, etc.                                                                                                            The digraphs introduced in ME look familiar to the modern reader, since many of them are still in use, but their application in ME was rather contradictory. For instance, both ou and ow were used for [u:] and [oul; double 0 stood for the open and close long [o:] and [0:] alongside 0; long [e:l and   [έ:] were shown indiscriminately by ie, double e and the single letter e. The conventional principle of spelling was later reinforced by the fixation of the written form of the word in printing and by extensive sound changes.                                                                     The phoneticians and spelling reformers of the 16th c. strove to restrict the freedom of variation and to improve English orthography by a more consistent use of letters and digraphs, and by the introduction of new symbols.                                                    They insisted upon a strict distinction between u and v when used to indicate a vowel and a consonant: [u] and [v], e.g. Early NE loue, selues, vnripe, unshaken later spelt as love, selves, unripe, unshaken; they introduced new digraphs to show the difference between some open and close vowels, namely the digraph ea for [έ: ] as distinguished from e, ee, and ie used for the closed [e: ], and the digraph oa alongside 0 in open syllables for [o:], as contrasted to 00 showing a long closed [0:]. The use of double consonants became less frequent, except in traditional spellings like kiss, sell, but double letters were sometimes employed to show that the preceding vowel was short. The activities of the scholars in the period of normalization — late 17th and the 18th c. — had a stabilizing effect on the development of English spelling. The dictionaries and grammars fixed the written forms of the words as obligatory standards. Only a few innovations were made: a few new digraphs were adopted with borrowed words, such as ph, ps — NE photograph, psychology, ch — NE chemistry, scheme and machine, g — genre.                           In the 18th c. the sound changes slowed down. Standard pronunciation (later known as RP — Received Pronunciation) and standard spelling were firmly established.

The publication of the first significant English dictionary by Samuel Johnson in 1755 and others that followed, the publication of the King James Bible in 1611, and the literary works of William Shakespeare mark the onset of Modern English. As written communication was becoming more prevalent, there was less leeway for spelling deviance. The British economy and naval trade prospered, allowing for culture and science to flourish, ever contributing to the development and enrichment of the printed lexicon. The 19th century revolutionized science and technology and gave rise to even more words, prefixes and suffixes from classical languages (cholesterol, telegraph, telephone, cyanide and philanthropist).  
 
The British colonization of America and other imperialist ventures around the globe allowed English to literally usurp a great deal of languages for more and more words that still keep spicing up English orthography with spelling irregularities. A major development following the global expansion of English is the spelling differences between British and American English, initially instigated by the publication of Noah Webster's American Dictionary in 1828.  
 
Words are constantly being added to the English language and are transcribed using the Roman alphabet (mustang, algebra, bungalow, samurai, and voodoo, to name a few). The global mass media and the Internet constantly bring world cultures and languages into dynamic interaction that yields more diversity and richness in every aspect of our lives. The lexical and orthographical richness of English is a challenge worth overcoming in the quest for proficiency in the language common to us all.