ENGLISH SPELLING

English Spelling
English spelling should not be confused with the English language. English spelling is our traditional way of representing the English language in written form; there is no necessary connection between the spelling system and the language system. We spell English as we do because of a long history of decisions made by writers and printers. If the history of English-speaking society had been different, its spelling system would be different. The spelling of a sound is used to bring to mind the sound of a word. When one sees <ee> in print in the word three, the sound /i/ comes to mind. Learning to read, in the earliest stages, means learning to associate particular spellings with particular sounds. (Note that I say particular spellings rather than particular letters; this is because not all sounds are spelled with single letters.
The English spelling system is an alphabet. An alphabet is a writing system in which the written symbols represent the phonemes (the word-building sounds) of the language, rather than, say, its syllables. For instance, the symbol <p> in English spelling represents the sound /p/, not a syllable such as /pa/ or /po/ (the main writing system of Japanese uses symbols to represent syllables like 'ma' or 'ko' rather than individual phonemes. Such a system is called a syllabary, not an alphabet. To see different writing systems, click here).
Every writing system consists of an inventory of graphemes. A grapheme is a one of the set of symbols used to represent sounds -- it is a spelling of a particular sound. Each grapheme of a writing system is used to represent a unit of the language being written. In a syllabary, the graphemes stand for syllables; in an alphabet, the graphemes stand for phonemes. As seen above, English has numerous graphemes for the /i/ sound: me, see, seat, receive, machine, people.

The 26 letters of the English alphabet are the raw material used to create graphemes, which in turn are used to represent the phonemes of the language. For instance, the two letters <s> and <h> are combined into a digraph <sh> to represent a single phoneme, the first sound of shoe, the middle sound of washer, etc. Letters themselves are not graphemes; they are the raw material for making graphemes. Don't let the fact that many English graphemes consist of one letter mislead you on this point. English has several grapheme types that go by traditional names in, for example, phonics instruction. These grapheme types are:
 

• Single-letter graphemes:
• Vowel letters:  a e i o u, as in bat, set, fit, pot, nut
• Consonant letters:  b c d f g h j k l m n p q r s t v w x y z  as in ace, kit, moon, home, etc.
• Double-letter graphemes:
• Vowel letters: ee, oo  as in beet, cool.   a, i, and u are only doubled in names derived from other languages such as Haas.
• Consonant letters: all consonants are frequently doubled except h, j, k, q, x, and y. Examples: apple, summer, toss, dizzy, etc.
• Letter-combination graphemes:
• Digraphs: Use of two different letters to spell a single sound, e.g., <th> for the first sound of three; <ch> as in chum, etc. In this case, the two letters make up a single grapheme, since they spell the sound together.
• Blends: Two letters that represent two sounds in sequence, as <qu> in queen (<q> represents /k/ and <u> represents /w/; <bl> as in black, etc. In this case, two graphemes are present: <b> represents the /b/ of black, while <l> represents its /l/.

Silent letters, such as the <e> of time, the <k> of knee, and the <gh> of sight, are letters which appear in a word, but do not in themselves represent a sound. Most silent letters were pronounced at an earlier stage of the history of English, but then, though the sound was lost from the word, the spelling did not change. Many critics of English spelling decry the retention of these letters, but they do serve a purpose. In some cases, they differentiate one word from another in spelling, for instance knot vs. not. Other silent letters participate in what are called spelling patterns: they make up for the shortage of vowel symbols we suffer (English has about 16 vowel phonemes, but we use only 5 letters to represent these). This value of silent letters is discussed below.
People often speak of the frustrations and seeming chaos of English spelling, but it is in fact more systematic than meets the eye. English spelling does have many irregularities that are the product of history, but sometimes these help us see the meaning relation between words (as between sign and signature). The following paragraphs present just a few examples of subregularities in English spelling. <c> represents two sounds: /s/ and /k/ (both are present in <accent>). <c> represents /s/ when it precedes <e>, <i>, or <y>; usually it represents /k/ in other positions, e.g.: <cent>, <city>, <cyst> vs. <cat>, <cut>, <close>, <cream>.
The /k/ sound can be spelled in various ways: <k> as in <kid>, <c> as in <cat>, <ck> as in <back>, <ch> as in <ache>, <q> as in <quite>. One regularity in this variety of spellings is that <ck> cannot be used at the beginning of a word, but only in the middle or at the end. We find words such as <tackle> and <back>, but not *ckat. (The asterisk * means that the word it precedes violates a rule and is impossible within the system.)
A double consonant is most often a cue to the pronunciation of a preceding vowel, especially in words of more than one syllable. Consider the pair <comma>, <coma>. The double <m> in the first word tells you that the <o> is pronounced /a/; the single <m> of the second tells you it is pronounced /o/. The pair <tapping>, <taping> illustrates the same principle, as do <super>, <supper> and <biter>, <bitter>. Also, double consonants preserve the pronunciation of the vowel of a base word when a suffix is added: doubling the <p> of <tap> when -ing is added to produce <tapping> preserves the pronunciation /æ/; if <p> were not doubled, we would read <taping>.
Another regularity about double consonants is that, while they often appear in the middle or at the end of a word, they never appear at the beginning; compare staff, bass, tall, hammer, apple with fine, soap, late, must, pole. Spellings such as *mmust or *ppole do not occur.
Single consonants also provide cues to vowel pronunciation when contrasted with the use of a single consonant followed by silent <e>. Consider these pairs:
tap vs. tape
mat vs. mate
pip vs. pipe
grim vs. grime
met vs. mete
mop vs. mope
Although the final <e> is not pronounced and therefore might seem useless, it is actually an important cue that tells us how to pronounce the preceding vowel.

Silent <gh>  and <g> also signal how to pronounce the vowel in a word; compare <fit>, <fight>, <mit>, <might>, <sit>, <sight>, <sin>, <sign>.
This is a very brief description of how English spelling works. More can be found in Dechant (1969) and other books on phonics.

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