Spelling pronunciation
Encyclopedia : S : SP : SPE : Spelling pronunciation
- Spelling pronunciation is different from pronunciation spelling
Examples of English words with common spelling pronunciations
- often, pronounced with [t] see explanation below
- clothes was historically pronounced the same way as the verb close ("Whenas in silks my Julia goes/.../The liquefaction of her clothes" --Herrick), but many speakers now insert a /ð/ sound
- salmon, occasionally pronounced with [l]
- comptroller, often pronounced with [mp] accepted pronunciation is "controller"
- ye the article, pronounced as if spelled with a Y instead of the printers' mark for the letter thorn
- tortilla and other words from Spanish with the double-L
- victuals, sometimes pronounced with [kt], or respelled "vittles"
- The pronunciation of waistcoat as spelled is now more common than the previous pronunciation "weskit"
- conduit, historically pronounced "kondit" or "kundit", is now nearly always "conndewit"
- medicine, historically pronounced with two syllables but now quite often with three (some speakers use two when they mean medicaments and three when they mean medical knowledge)
- Wednesday, historically "Wendsday" but now quite often "Weddensday"
Spelling pronunciations and history
Spelling pronunciations often restore ancient pronunciation patterns. For example, centuries ago, the word often did have a [t], heard elsewhere in oft. The [t] dropped by a regular process before the ending -en, as elsewhere in soften, moisten, fasten. After the [t] fell, often continued to be spelled with t. The current tendency to pronounce the [t] thus restores an ancient rendition.The word palm (in the sense, 'palm of the hand') was originally Latin, and had an [l] in that language. The word was inherited into French, where it lost the [l]: paume. From the French it was borrowed into Middle English, still without [l]: paume. Scholars, aware of its Latin origin, then introduced a (then-silent) 'l' into the spelling. The rendering of this l in pronunciation is apparently a fairly recent phenomenon.
Spelling pronunciation vs. analogical pronunciation
In some cases, we cannot tell if a pronunciation is a true spelling pronunciation. The alternative is that a word is being pronounced analogically, in essence as the "sum of its parts". Thus, forehead is commonly pronounced as a sequence of fore plus head, instead of the historically earlier "forrid"; and waistcoat is commonly pronounced as a sequence of waist and coat, instead of the historically earlier "weskit".Analogical pronunciations can arise even when not supported by spelling. For example, inmost comes from Old English innemest, which contained the ordinary superlative suffix -est. The later switch to in + most was an analogical pronunciation.
Many cases are ambiguous between spelling pronunciation and analogical pronunciation, and indeed may perhaps arise as a result of both factors operating simultaneously. The only unambiguous cases of spelling pronunciation are those in which the irregular spelling was introduced by idiosyncratic scribal practice, as in the "palm" example above.
Opinions about spelling pronunciation
Spelling pronunciations give rise to varied opinions. Often those who retain the old pronunciation consider the spelling pronunciation to be a mark of ignorance or insecurity. Those who use a spelling pronunciation may not be aware that it is one, and consider the historically authentic version to be slovenly, since it "slurs over" a letter. Fowler reports that in his day there was a conscious movement among schoolteachers and others encouraging people to abandon anomalous traditional pronunciations and "speak as you spell".Spelling pronunciations in children and foreigners
Children who read a great deal often produce spelling pronunciations, since they have no way of knowing, other than the spelling, how the rare words they encounter are correctly pronounced. Thoughtful parents usually try to correct such children's errors gently. But as this can never extend to every instance, and there are many words which one reads far more often than one hears, what is a spelling pronunciation in one generation often becomes standard in the next.Well-read second language learners are likewise vulnerable to producing spelling pronunciations.
In other languages
In French, the first vowel in oignon (onion) is, anomalously, /o/, where general principles would lead one to expect [wa]. The reason is that the spelling of this word is a hangover from the 17th century, when "i" was invariably inserted before "gn": montagne was spelled "montaigne", but pronounced in the same way as today. However, there are provincial school-teachers who insist on pronouncing oignon with a [wa].In Hebrew there is a vowel called patach ganuv, consisting of an "a" sign placed underneath a final guttural but pronounced before it: an example is ruach, which looks as if it ought to be *rucha. Where the final consonant is a sounded he (h), many speakers do indeed place the vowel after it, mistakenly pronouncing Eloah (God) as "Eloha" and gavoah (high) as "gavoha". Other examples of spelling pronunciations are the Sephardic "kal" and "tsahorayim": see Spanish and Portuguese Jews.
Books
- See the index entries under "spelling pronunciation" from Leonard Bloomfield, Language (originally published 1933; current edition 1984, University of Chicago Press, Chicago; ISBN 812081195X).
- Most of the etymologies and spelling histories above are taken from the Oxford English Dictionary.
See also
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