The English spelling system
in half a
page
Do you know the Engish
spelling system?
Not many people
do
See full lists and cartoons of present vowels spelling and spoken
Table of the basic English Vowel
Spellings
|
a e i o u
|
pat
|
pet
|
pit
|
pot
|
nut
|
|
Ending a word
|
|
|
pity
|
|
|
|
A E I O U
|
mate - bait
|
mete - meat - meet
|
mite - might- typing
|
mote - moat
|
mute
|
|
Ending a word
|
may
|
me - bee
|
hi - my
|
no
|
emu
|
|
ar er air or/aw
|
cart - banana
|
fern - burn
|
fair
|
taut - fork
|
|
|
Ending a word
|
banana
|
her
|
air
|
saw - or
|
|
|
ow oy oo OO
|
shout
|
boil
|
boot
|
book - put
|
|
|
Ending a word
|
cow
|
boy
|
tabu - too
|
|
|
A dictionary of at least 40,000 words is needed to set out the complete English spelling system as it is at present. No other major alphabetic spelling system is as bad as that.
This is because the English language has around 44 sounds,
but only 26 roman letters, A-Z.
And these 26 letters are used to represent the 44 sounds in more than 650 different ways .
However, there is a basic spelling system underlying all the accumulated mess.
And it is not too bad - it only needs cleaning up.
25 Consonants: b d f g h j k l m n p r s t v w y z plus ch, sh, wh, ng and th/th as in think this
There are no letters really for zh as in measure vision
19 Vowels: a e i o u, a-e e-e i-e o-e u-e, ar er air or/aw, ow oy oo
There are no basic letters for oo as in book, or for the unclear sound when a vowel is not stressed, as in int' rpr' t alph'bet,. This sound is sometimes called schwa, and written ¶ upside-down e
The 318 different spellings for the 19 vowel sounds could be reduced to the 40 most consistent vowel spellings without chanjing the usual appearance of print too much, but making it much easier to lern to read and write, as you can see from the Table of Basic English vowel spellings above
This basic system stil includes the 'magic e' as a silent letter to
show a long vowel.
Hat
is not the same as
hate.
Minut would not be
the same as
minute.
This convention keeps togethr the look of word families
like
bit/bite/bitn/biter
which all hav the same stem
bit.
Consonants can be dubld to show a short
vowel befor them. So
comma
is not the same as
coma.
See how close to a sensibl English speling
reform u can get. Explore. If u kept the spelings of 30 very comn
'sight' words like what who
to use of off once one could should would, how hard would
a sensibl English spelng be for u to read, and how much less dificult
to spel? How much faster could it be lernd?
What ar th chanjes u would like to make?
Back to Spelling
Index Page
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