ENGLISH PHONETICS, PRONUNCIATION, AND SPELLING

by tractates

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
—Gerard Nolst Trinite

After reading this post which asks the somewhat misguided question “why can’t we spell English words phonetically?”, I got to thinking that my students, as they learn the seemingly random and bizarre inconsistencies of English phonetics, as illustrated in the above poem, will ponder the same misguided question. So, I want to address this question in the negative, and further pose the argument that the beauty of English lies in its inconsistencies.

We cannot and should not spell English words phonetically. Here’s why.

Every word in every language has a history. When you think about it, spelling and pronunciation are not haphazardly decided. They have a history. For example, the (somewhat) silent H in ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’ and ‘why’ is there because in Old English the H and W were switched and pronounced, making a strong gutteral sound that has been lost to English (though still exists in other Germanic languages). Beowulf begins with Hwæt! (from which we get ‘what’, but used there like ‘listen!’). The frustration over the apparent inconsistencies in English comes, I think, from a lack of explanation as to why it is so. English-as-second-language learners feels cheated, as though native English speakers are playing a sick joke at their expense.

English is an amalgam of Anglo-Saxon (Germanic languages), a spattering of Celtic words (cairn, Thames), Norman and Modern French (mayday from m’aidez), Latin and Greek roots from the Renaissance, and a bunch of loan words (sushi, alchemy). Spelling provides the amateur philologist little clues about the origins and cultural significance of not only the words used, but the things the words stand for. So, for example, the awkward English word castle comes from the Norman French word castel, which in is related to the modern French château (the ch “sh” sound becomes a c “k” sound as a rule between Norman and modern French, and the little hat over the a signifies a silent s that used to be there in Old French), which in turn stems from the Latin castellum. Why is that interesting? Because it tells us that the technology of fortified stone buildings came to England from the mainland. If you don’t think that’s interesting, why don’t you go outside and play hide-and-go-fuck-yourself.

The relationship between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary. When it gets down to it, I bet the hatred and anger toward the English language comes from the terrifying realization that, like all languages, it bares no fundamental relation to its objects, that the relationship between the sign ‘tree’ and those things in the woods is, in a sense, make believe. That the relationship between the written sign and its utterance could also be as fundamentally ephemeral only adds to the horror. Furthermore, language is, as Saussere taught us, in constant flux. Not only will you die, but no one will understand your words a few thousand years from now (except academics and nerds who study dead languages). Language allows you to think and defines who you are, and yet you have little control over it. You can’t grasp its fundamental nature, and it has a life of its own.

A word is dead

when it is said,

some say.

I say it just

begins to live

that day.

—Emily Dickinson

Standardized language is totalitarian and destructive. Languages are natural, organic things, which means they constantly breath, in and out. They are flawed, vulnerable, and eventually die. But they bare children, and their children carry their genetic memory. Attempts at standardizing languages are, like all attempts at immortality, doomed to fail. At root, these attempts are fascist. They say “our language is the true and good language. Those who speak incorrectly are degenerates and freaks. You will speak our language or you will be silent.” This is how standardized English is, despite the good intentions of teachers, often taught. The lack of a standard version of any language was for most of human history a fact of life. The standardization of most languages occurred around the rise of empires, and for the explicit goals of imperial domination. Ways of living, traditions, and culture die out alongside their native languages. Christian missionaries to this day use linguistic standardization as a means to quash native religions and spread Christianity and Western culture. I’m not saying we should go back to nearly mutually incomprehensible dialects, if fact we can’t. But the next time you correct someone’s spelling or pronunciation, or complain about how unphonetic and inconsistent a language is, remember that you might be thinking like a fascist.

We have the International Phonetic Alphabet. If you are still not convinced, you should advocate for teaching the IPA instead of for doomed, fascistic attempts at standardization. Imagine a world in which people could read the phonetic pronunciation guides in dictionaries. In that world, first and second language English speakers would know how to pronounce things despite English spelling (you wouldn’t even have to learn the whole IPA, only the sounds that are used in English), and philologists could still trace the etymology and history of English words. Plus, learning different languages would come easier and less stressful.