Should we simplify spelling?

English is famous for the intricacy of its spelling. In 1768, Benjamin Franklin devised a new, phonetic alphabet for the English language, which omitted some of the existing letters and included others Franklin himself designed. He shared it with his British friend and correspondent Polly Stevenson, to whom he wrote in his newly created alphabet. In this letter, Franklin responds to Polly's objections to his projects with playfulness, affection, conviction and common sense. Bad spelling, he contended, is a result of bad spelling rules. Franklin's proposal was not successful but his ideas were behind Noah Webster’s American spelling.

The simplification of spelling — as this Handbook states — is not an unconscious process, inevitable without human effort. That, together with the "caotic condition" of English spelling, "mard by absurdities and inconsistencies that call for improvement," might explain why many Spelling Reform Associations have existed in the English Language. This Handbook was the product of one of them, the Simplified Spelling Board, founded in the USA in 1906. It gathered distinguished scholars, educators, men of letters (Mark Twain among them). In my view, this Handbook ranks among the most solid, didactic and erudite allegations in favor of spelling simplification. It exposes the "many anomalies" of English spelling, and it carefully recounts its history (full of mistakes and misunderstandings) together with the history of spelling reformers. It also makes the case for reform, responds one by one to possible objections and recommends new spelling rules as well a list of words to be spelled differently.

Let me add that Brander Matthews, a member of the Board, was also Theodore Roosevelt's personal friend. In 1906, he convinced the then President to issue a Presidential edict to simplify the spelling of 300 English words in official texts. He was following, as he explained in his order to the Government Printing Office, "the views of the ablest and most practical educators of our time as well as of the most profound scholars." Ridiculed by the press and political opponents, this attempt failed. Roosevelt, however, continued to use some of the simplified words in his private correspondence.

This text, as well as the following two, relate to the most important spelling reform in the Spanish language, the one that took place in Chile between 1844 and 1927. This article, first published in 1823 by the intellectual father of the Chilean reform, outlines Andrés Bello’s basic ideas on how Spanish spelling should be simplified in order "to facilitate and spread the art of reading" in the newly born Spanish American countries. His proposal, however, was not solely Latin American. Similar claims were also being made at the time in Spain. And, by and large, they still speak to us.

Available in English as "Notes on the Advisability of Simplifying and Standardizing Orthography in America" in Selected Writings of Andés Bello. Oxford University Press, 1997. (1823)

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento – a self-taught educator who would later become one of the finest writers of 19th Century Spanish America as well as Argentine president - was a master of verbal pugilism. He thrived in controversy. Perhaps that is why he was appointed to promote the Chilean spelling reform. This text is the one he read in 1843 in front of a tough audience: the Faculty of the Humanities of the University of Chile. He defended his ideas, more radical than Bello’s, with his usual vehemence and clarity, without depriving himself of the pleasure of insulting his own public. As he said, he wished he was not addressing “grammarians and Latinists, preoccupied with a sterile science”, but youngsters, women, men of commerce and the like who were looked down upon by the litterati "because they do not possess the secret of placing a few letters correctly." Maybe not the wisest choice.

The title of this article is somewhat misleading. Rather than an account of Bello’s ideas, it is a comprehensive survey of the history of Spanish spelling, a history animated — in his words — by "an impulse for spelling reform that encompassed the whole Spanish tradition from Nebrija on." Rosenblat paints a lively portrait of spelling as a battlefield where different ideas, criteria, individuals and institutions dialogue and confront throughout time. The most endearing lesson one draws from this article is that the written language is not something we are given in stone. It is the product of a history of changes and it is still susceptible of revision.

The complexity and unruliness of French spelling is a powerful source of cultural pride in the francophone world. That is why spelling contests amount to something close to a national sport. In this book, written by a leading specialist on the subject but aimed at the general public, Nina Catach tells us how French spelling evolved over time. The editions published during the last decades include her account and reflections on the 1990’s proposal for a few "spelling rectifications" in French. To her, the debates around it proved "that these are not ivory tower disputes but our society’s strong demand."