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English orthography is the alphabetic spelling
Orthography

The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Orthography is derived from Greek language ????? orth?s and ???fe?? gr?phein ....
 system used by the English language
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of rules that generally governs how speech sounds are represented in writing. English has relatively complicated spelling rules when compared to other languages with alphabet
Alphabet

An alphabet is a standardized set of letter basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a phoneme, a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past....
ic orthographies. Because of the complex history of the English language, nearly every sound can be legitimately spelled in more than one way, and many spellings can be pronounced in more than one way.

Function of the letters
Note: In the following discussion, only one or two common pronunciations of American and British English varieties
Variety (linguistics)

In sociolinguistics, a variety, also called a lect, is a language or dialect considered as a variety or development of another language or dialect....
 are used in this article for each word cited.






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English orthography is the alphabetic spelling
Orthography

The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Orthography is derived from Greek language ????? orth?s and ???fe?? gr?phein ....
 system used by the English language
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of rules that generally governs how speech sounds are represented in writing. English has relatively complicated spelling rules when compared to other languages with alphabet
Alphabet

An alphabet is a standardized set of letter basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a phoneme, a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past....
ic orthographies. Because of the complex history of the English language, nearly every sound can be legitimately spelled in more than one way, and many spellings can be pronounced in more than one way.

Function of the letters


Note: In the following discussion, only one or two common pronunciations of American and British English varieties
Variety (linguistics)

In sociolinguistics, a variety, also called a lect, is a language or dialect considered as a variety or development of another language or dialect....
 are used in this article for each word cited. Other regional pronunciations may be possible for some words, but indicating all possible regional variants in the article is impractical.

Phonemic representation


Like most alphabetic systems, letters
Letter (alphabet)

A letter is an element in an alphabetic system of writing, such as the Greek alphabet and its descendants. Each letter in the written language is usually associated with one phoneme in the spoken form of the language....
 in English orthography may represent a particular sound. For example, the word cat (pronounced ) consists of three letters c, a, and t, in which c represents the sound , a the sound , and t the sound .

Single letters or multiple sequences of letters may provide this function. Thus, the single letter c in the word cat represents the single sound . In the word ship (pronounced ), the digraph
Digraph (orthography)

A digraph, bigraph , or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined....
 sh (two letters) represents the sound . In the word ditch, the three letters tch represent the sound .

Less commonly, a single letter can represent more than one sound. The most common example is the letter x, which often represents more than one sound as in the prefix
Prefix

A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. The word "prefix" is itself made up of the stem fix , and the prefix pre- , both of which are derived from Latin root s....
 ex- where it represents the consonant cluster (for example, in the word ex-wife, pronounced ).

The same letter (or sequence of letters) may indicate different sounds when the letter occurs in different positions. For instance, the digraph gh represents the sound at the end of single-syllable
Syllable

A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of Speech communication sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter....
, single-morpheme
Morpheme

In morpheme-based morphology, a is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantics Meaning .In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes ....
 words, such as cough (pronounced in many dialects of American English
American English

PhonologyIn many ways, compared to English language in England, North American English is conservative in its phonology. Some distinctive accents can be found on the East Coast of the United States , partly because these areas were in contact with England, and imitated prestigious varieties of English English at a time when those varieties we...
). At the beginning of syllables (i.e. the syllable onset
Syllable onset

In phonetics and phonology, a syllable onset is the part of a syllable that precedes the syllable nucleus....
), the digraph gh represents the sound , such as in the word ghost (pronounced or ). Furthermore, the sound value represented by a particular letter (or letters) is often restricted by its position within the word. Thus, the digraph gh never represents the sound in syllable onsets and never represents the sound in syllable coda
Syllable coda

In phonology, a syllable coda comprises the consonant sounds of a syllable that follow the syllable nucleus, which is usually a vowel. The combination of a nucleus and a coda is called a syllable rime....
s. (Incidentally, this shows that ghoti
Ghoti

Ghoti is a constructed example used to illustrate irregularities in English language spelling. It is a respelling of the word fish, and like fish is ....
 does not follow English spelling rules to sound like fish.)

Word origin


Another type of spelling characteristic is related to word origin. For example, when representing a vowel, the letter y in non-word-final positions represents the sound in some words borrowed
Loanword

A loanword is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept whereby it is the Meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself....
 from Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 (reflecting an original upsilon
Upsilon

Upsilon is the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 400. It is derived from the phoenecian alphabet Waw ....
), whereas the letter usually representing this sound in non-Greek words is the letter i. Thus, the word myth (pronounced ) is of Greek origin, while pith (pronounced ) is a Germanic
Germanic languages

The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European languages language family. The common ancestor of all the languages in this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Pre-Roman Iron Age....
 word. Other examples include th representing (which is usually represented by t), ph representing (which is usually represented by f), and ch representing (which is usually represented by c or k) — the use of these spellings for these sounds often mark words that have been borrowed from Greek
English words of Greek origin

The Greek language has contributed to the English language vocabulary in three ways:#directly as an immediate donor,#indirectly through other intermediate language, as an original donor , and...
.

Some, such as Brengelman (1970), have suggested that, in addition to this marking of word origin, these spellings indicate a more formal level of style
Stylistics (linguistics)

Stylistics is the study of varieties of language whose properties position that language in wiktionary:context. For example, the language of advertising, politics, religion, individual authors, etc., or the language of a period in time, all are used distinctively and belong in a particular situation....
 or register
Register (linguistics)

In linguistics, a register is a subset of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, an English language speaker may adhere more closely to prescription and description, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal and refrain from using the word "ain't" when speaking in a formal setting, bu...
 in a given text, although Rollins (2004) finds this point to be exaggerated as there would many exceptions where a word with one of these spellings, such as ph for (like telephone), could occur in an informal text.

Homophone differentiation


Letters are also used to distinguish between homophone
Homonym

In linguistics, a homonym is one of a group of words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings, usually as a result of the two words having different origins....
s (words with the same pronunciation) that would otherwise have the same pronunciation and spelling but different meanings. The words hour and our are pronounced identically in some dialects (as or ). However, they are distinguished from each other orthographically by the addition of the letter h. Another example of this is the homophones plain and plane where both are pronounced , but are marked with two different orthographic representations of the vowel .

In written language, this may help to resolve potential ambiguities that would arise otherwise (cf. He's breaking the car vs. He's braking the car). This can be seen in a positive light since with written language
Written language

A written language is the representation of a language by means of a writing system. Written language is an invention in that it must be taught to children, who will instinctively learn or create spoken language or sign language languages....
 (unlike spoken language
Spoken language

A spoken language is a human natural language in which the words are uttered through the mouth. Most human languages are spoken languages.Speech communication stands in contrast to sign language and written language....
) the reader usually has no recourse to ask the writer for clarification (whereas in a conversation
Conversation

A conversation is communication by two, three, or more people. It is a social skill that is not difficult for most individuals. Conversations are the ideal form of communication in some respects, since they allow people with different views on a topic to learn from each other....
, the listener can ask the speaker about lexical
Lexeme

A lexeme is an abstract Unit of Morphology Semantic analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word....
 uncertainties). Some proponents of spelling reform
Spelling reform

Many languages have undergone spelling reform, where a deliberate, often officially sanctioned or mandated, change to spelling takes place. Proposals for such reform are also common....
 view homophones as undesirable and would prefer that they be eliminated. Doing so, however, would increase orthographic ambiguities that would need to be resolved via the linguistic context.

Marking sound changes in other letters


Another function of English letters is to provide information about other aspects of pronunciation or the word itself. Rollins (2004) uses the term "markers" for letters with this function. Letters may mark different types of information. One common type of marking is that of a different pronunciation of another letter within the word. An example of this is the letter e in the word cottage (pronounced or ). Here e indicates that the preceding g should represent the sound . This contrasts with the more common value of g in word-final position as the sound , such as in tag (pronounced ).

A particular letter may have more than one pronunciation-marking role. Besides the marking of word-final g as indicating as in cottage, the letter e may also mark an altered pronunciation for other vowels. In the pair ban and bane, the a of ban has the value , whereas the a of bane is marked by the e as having the value .

Functionless letters


Other letters have no linguistic function. For example, there is a general "graphotactic" constraint in English orthography against words that end in the letter v. Thus, in order to satisfy this constraint, syllable-final v is followed by the letter e, such as in the word give. Spellings such as rev and slav are extremely rare.

Multiple functionality


A given letter or (letters) may have dual functions. For example, the letter i in the word cinema has a sound-representing function (representing the sound ) and a pronunciation-marking function (marking the c as having the value opposed to the value ).

Underlying representation


Like many other alphabetic orthographies, English spelling does not represent non-contrastive phonetic sounds (that is, sub-phonemic sounds). The fact that the letter t is pronounced with aspiration
Aspiration (phonetics)

In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of Earth's atmosphere that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents....
  at the beginning of words is never indicated in the spelling, and, indeed, this phonetic detail is probably not noticeable to the average native speaker not trained in the phonetics. However, unlike some orthographies, English orthography often represents a very abstract underlying representation
Underlying representation

In morphophonology, the underlying representation or underlying form of a morpheme is the abstract form the morpheme is postulated to have before any phonological rules have applied to it....
 (or morphophonemic form) of English words.

In these cases, a given morpheme
Morpheme

In morpheme-based morphology, a is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantics Meaning .In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes ....
 (i.e. a component of a word) is represented with a single spelling despite the fact that it is pronounced differently (i.e. has different surface representations) in different environments. An example is the past tense
Past tense

The past tense is a verb grammatical tense expressing action, activity, state or being in the past of the current moment , or prior to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future ....
 suffix
Suffix

In grammar, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the grammatical conjugation of verbs....
 -ed, which may be pronounced variously as , , or (for example, dip , dipped , boom , boomed , loot , looted ). Because these different pronunciations of -ed can be predicted by a few phonological rules, only a single spelling is needed in the orthography.

Another example involves the vowel differences (with accompanying stress pattern changes) in several related words. For instance, the word photographer is derived from the word photograph by adding the derivational
Derivation (linguistics)

In linguistics, derivation is "Used to form new words, as with happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine....
 suffix -er. When this suffix is added, the vowel pronunciations change:

Spelling Pronunciation
photograph
photographer


It may be argued that the underlying representation of photo is a single phonological form, such as ||. Since the (surface) pronunciation of the vowels can be predicted by phonological rules according to the different stress patterns, the orthography only needs to have one spelling that corresponds to the underlying form. Other examples of this type, include words with the -ity suffix (as in agile vs agility, acid vs acidity, divine vs divinity, sane vs sanity, etc.). (See also: Trisyllabic laxing
Trisyllabic laxing

Trisyllabic laxing or trisyllabic shortening is a process in English language whereby tense vowels become lax when followed by two syllables, of which the first syllable is unstressed....
.)

Another example includes words like sign (pronounced ) and bomb (pronounced or ) where the "silent" letters g and b, respectively, seem to be "inert" letters with no functional role. However, there are the related words signature and bombard in which the so-called "silent" letters are pronounced and or , respectively. Here it may be argued that the underlying representation of sign and bomb is || and || or ||, in which the underlying || and || are only pronounced in the surface forms when followed by certain suffixes (-ature, -ard). Otherwise, the || and || are not realized in the surface pronunciation (e.g. when standing alone, or when followed by suffixes like -ing or -er). In these cases, the orthography indicates the underlying consonants that are present in certain words but are absent in other related words. Other examples include the t in fast / and fasten / and the h in heir / and inherit .

Another example includes words like mean (pronounced ) and meant (pronounced ). Here the vowel spelling ea is pronounced differently in the two related words. Thus, again the orthography uses only a single spelling that corresponds to the single morphemic form rather than to the surface phonological form.

English orthography does not always provide an underlying representation; sometimes it provides an intermediate representation between the underlying form and the surface pronunciation. This is the case with the spelling of the regular plural
Plural

Plural is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. In the English language, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers....
 morpheme, which is written as either -s (as in tick, ticks and mite, mites) or -es (as in box, boxes). Here the spelling -s is pronounced either or (depending on the environment, e.g. ticks and pigs ) while -es is pronounced (e.g. boxes or ). Thus, there are two different spellings that correspond to the single underlying representation || of the plural suffix and the three surface forms. The spelling indicates the insertion
Epenthesis

In phonology, epenthesis is the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially to the interior of a word. Epenthesis may be divided into two types: excrescence and anaptyxis ....
 of before the in the spelling -es, but does not indicate the devoiced
Voice (phonetics)

Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sound, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced....
  distinctly from the unaffected in the spelling -s.

The abstract representation of words as indicated by the orthography can be considered to be advantageous since the etymological relationships between words are very apparent to English readers. This makes writing English more complex, but arguably makes reading English more efficient.

However, very abstract underlying representations, such as that of Chomsky & Halle (1968) or of underspecification
Underspecification

In theoretical linguistics, underspecification is a phenomenon where certain feature s are omitted in underlying representations. Restricted underspecification theory holds that features should only be underspecified if their values are predictable....
 theories, are sometimes considered too abstract to accurately reflect the linguistic knowledge of native speakers. Followers of these arguments believe the less abstract surface forms are more "psychologically real" and thus more useful in terms of pedagogy
Pedagogy

Pedagogy , or paedagogy is the art or science of being a teacher. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction....
.

Spelling patterns


Spelling to sound correspondences


Vowels

In a generative
Generative

Generative may refer to:* Generative actor* Generative art* Generative musicMath and science* Generative Anthropology* Generative model...
 approach to English spelling, Rollins (2004) identifies twenty main orthographic vowels of stressed
Stress (linguistics)

In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables....
 syllables that are grouped into four main categories: "Lax", "Tense", "Heavy", "Tense-R". (As this classification is based on orthography, not all orthographic "lax" vowels are necessarily phonologically lax.)








For instance, the letter a can represent the lax vowel , tense , heavy or , or tense-r or . Heavy and tense-r vowels are the respective lax and tense counterparts followed by the letter r.

Tense vowels are distinguished from lax vowels with a "silent" e
Silent E

Silent e is a writing convention in English language spelling. When reading, the silent letter e at the end of a word signals a specific pronunciation of the preceding vowel letter, as in the difference between "rid" and "ride" ....
 letter that is added at the end of words. Thus, the letter a in hat is lax , but when the letter e is added in the word hate the letter a is tense . Similarly, heavy and tense-r vowels pattern together: the letters ar in car are heavy , the letters ar followed by silent e in the word care are . The letter u represents two different vowel patterns, one being , the other . There is no distinction between heavy and tense-r vowels with the letter o, and the letter u in the pattern does not have a heavy vowel member.

Besides silent e, another strategy for indicating tense and tense-r vowels, is the addition of another orthographic vowel forming a digraph
Digraph (orthography)

A digraph, bigraph , or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined....
. In this case, the first vowel is usually the main vowel while the second vowel is the "marking" vowel. For example, the word man has a lax a pronounced , but with the addition of i (as the digraph ai) in the word main the a is marked as tense and pronounced . These two strategies produce words that are spelled differently but pronounced identically, as in mane (silent e strategy), main (digraph strategy) and Maine (both strategies). The use of two different strategies relates to the function of distinguishing between words that would otherwise be homonyms.

Besides the 20 basic vowel spellings, Rollins (2004) has a reduced vowel category (representing the sounds ) and a miscellaneous category (representing the sounds and +V, +V, V+V).

Consonants

Notes:
  • The dash has two different meanings. A dash after the letter indicates that it must be at the beginning of a syllable, eg j- in jumper and ajar. A dash before the letter indicates that it cannot be at the beginning of a word, eg -ck in sick and ticket.
  • More specific rules take precedence over more general ones, eg 'c- before e, i or y' takes precedence over 'c'.
  • Where the letter combination is described as 'word-final', inflection
    Inflection

    In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as grammatical tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, grammatical aspect, grammatical person, grammatical number, grammatical gender, grammatical case....
    al suffixes may be added without changing the pronunciation, eg catalogues.
  • The dialect used is RP
    Received Pronunciation

    Received Pronunciation is a form of pronunciation of the English language which has long been perceived as uniquely prestigious amongst British Accent ....
    .
  • Isolated foreign borrowings are excluded.
  • This relies highly on knowledge of where the stress in a word is, but English has no consistent way of showing stress.


Spelling Major value (IPA) Examples of major value Other values (IPA)
b, -bb bit, rabbit  
c before e, i or y centre, city, cyst, face, prince cello
special
Celts
c cat, cross  
-cc before e or i accept  
-cc account  
ch chin chord, archaic
machine, parachute, chef
-ck tack, ticket  
ct- ctenoid  
d, -dd dive, ladder duate, gradual (both may also be pronounced as in RP)
-dg before e, i, or y ledger  
f, -ff fine, off f
g before e, i or y gentle, magic, gyrate, page, college get, give, girl, begin
garage
g, -gg go, great, stagger  
gh- ghost, ghastly  
-gh Ø dough, high gh, enough
-ght right, daughter, bought  
gn- gnome, gnaw  
h- after ex Ø exhibit, exhaust hale
h- he, alcohol Ø vehicle, honest, hono(u)r
j- jump, ajar jah
Jean
Ø Marijuana
k key, bake  
kn- knee, knock  
l, -ll- line, valley  
-ll, -l- all, whale 
-ll, -l- in some dialects all, whale 
m, -mm mine, hammer  
-mb climb, plumber  
mn- mnemonic  
-mn hymn, autumn  
link, plonk, anchor  
n, -nn nice, funny  
-ng long, singing ngland, finger, stronger
danger, passenger
p, -pp pill, happy  
ph physical, photograph /p/ Phuket,
/v/ Stephen
pn- pneumonia, pneumatic  
ps- psychology, psychic  
pt- ptomaine  
q Iraq  
r-, -rr ray, parrot Ø iron
rh, -rrh rhyme, diarrhoea  
-r, -rr, -rrh
when not followed
by a vowel sound 		Ø in non-rhotic
dialects such as RP,
in rhotic
Rhotic

In linguistics, rhotic can refer to:* Rhotic consonant, such as the sound in red* R-colored vowel, such as the sound in Midwestern American English pronunciation of fur and before a consonant as in hard....

dialects such as GA 		bar, bare, catarrh  
-s- between vowels rose, prison se, base
word-final -s morpheme
Morpheme

In morpheme-based morphology, a is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantics Meaning .In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes ....

after a voiceless
Voiceless

In linguistics, the term voiceless describes the pronunciation of sounds when the larynx does not vibrate. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of phonation....
 sound 		pets, shops  
word-final -s morpheme
Morpheme

In morpheme-based morphology, a is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantics Meaning .In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes ....
 after a voiced sound 		beds, magazines  
s, -ss song, ask, message ssors, dessert, dissolve
sugar, tissue, agression
vision
sc- before e, i or y scene, scissors, scythe sceptic
fascism
sch- school schist, schedule (this may be pronounced as )
schism
sh shin  
t, -tt ten, bitter tio, Martian
question, bastion
-tch batch, kitchen  
th thin, them thyme, Thames
eighth
v, -vv vine, bovver  
w- we Ø sword, answer
wh- before o who, whole  
wh- phoneme
Phoneme

In human language, a phoneme is the smallest posited linguistically distinctive unit of sound. Phonemes carry no semantic content themselves. In theoretical terms, phonemes are not the physical segment s themselves, but cognitive abstractions or categorizations of them....
 exists) 		wheel  
wr- wrong  
x- xylophone Xiao
-xc before e or i excellent, excited  
-xc excuse  
-x box xiety
anxious
y- yes  
z, -zz zoo, fuzz zza


Combinations of consonant and vowel letters
Spelling Major value (IPA) Examples of major value Minor value (IPA) Examples of minor value Exceptions
qu- queen, quick liquor, mosquito 
-cqu acquaint, acquire  
gu- before e or i guest, guidelinguistics  
alf calf, half  
alm calm, almond
olm holm (oak)  
alk walk, chalk  
olk yolk, folk  
al, all bald, call, falcon
ol, oll old, roll  
unstressed ex- before a vowel or h exist, examine, exhaust exhale  
unstressed ci- before a vowel special, gracious species
unstressed sci- before a vowel conscience  
unstressed -si before a vowel expansion division, illusion  
unstressed -ssi before a vowel mission  
unstressed -ti before a vowel nation, ambitious equation tio, cation
unstressed -ture nature, picture  
unstressed -sure leisure, treasure  
unstressed -zure seizure, azure  
unstressed -ften soften, often  
unstressed -sten listen, fasten tangsten, Austen /sten/ sten
-scle corpuscle, muscle  
-(a)isle aisle, isle, enisle, lisle, Carlisle FR Lisle  
unstressed -stle whistle, rustle  
word-final -le after a consonant little, table  
word-final -re after a consonant metre, fibre FR célèbre, macabre, entendre, propre, théâtre, d'etre /re?/ SP padre
word-final -ngue tongue distingué, merengue, dengue(+/?gi/) 
word-final -gue catalogue, plague, colleague argue, redargue, ague, Montague /gwe?/ segue
word-final -que mosque, bisque -qué : FR appliqué, communiqué, manqué, risqué /kju?/ barbeque(barbecue)
word-final -ed morpheme
Morpheme

In morpheme-based morphology, a is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantics Meaning .In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes ....
 after /t/ or /d/* 		waited  
word-final -ed morpheme
Morpheme

In morpheme-based morphology, a is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantics Meaning .In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes ....
 after a voiceless
Voiceless

In linguistics, the term voiceless describes the pronunciation of sounds when the larynx does not vibrate. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of phonation....
 sound* 		topped  
word-final -ed morpheme
Morpheme

In morpheme-based morphology, a is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantics Meaning .In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes ....
 after a voiced sound* 		failed, ordered  
word-final -es morpheme
Morpheme

In morpheme-based morphology, a is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantics Meaning .In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes ....
** 		washes, boxes  
* There is absolutely no way to tell if it is the morpheme or an integral part of the word. Compare snaked and naked.

** Same as above compare the two pronunciations of axes.
small text for rare words. Loans words SP for Spanish, FR for French.

Sound to spelling correspondences

The following table shows for each sound, the various spelling patterns used to denote it. The symbol "…" stands for an intervening consonant. The letter sequences are in order of frequency with the most common first. Some of these patterns are very rare or unique, such as au for the sound in laugh (some accents). In some cases, the spellings shown are found in only one known English word (such as "mh" for , or "yrrh" for ).

Consonants
IPA spelling example
p, pp, ph, pe, gh pill, happy, Phuket, tape, hiccough
b, bb, bh, p (in some dialects) bit, rabbit, Bhutan, thespian
t, tt, ed, pt, th, ct ten, bitter, topped, pterodactyl, thyme, ctenoid
d, dd, ed, dh, th (in some dialects) dive, ladder, failed, dharma, them
g, gg, gue, gh go, stagger, catalogue, ghost
c, k, ck, ch, cc, qu, q, cq, cu, que, kk, kh cat, key, tack, chord, account, liquor, Iraq, acquaint, biscuit, mosque, trekker, khan
m, mm, mb, mn, mh, gm, chm mine, hammer, climb, hymn, mho, diaphragm, drachm
n, nn, kn, gn, pn, nh, cn, mn, ng (in some dialects) nice, funny, knee, gnome, pneumonia, piranha, cnidarian, mnemonic, fighting
ng, n, ngue, ngh sing, link, tongue, Singh
r, rr, wr, rh, rrh ray, parrot, wrong, rhyme, diarrh(o)ea
f, ph, ff, gh, pph, u, th (in some dialects) fine, physical, off, laugh, sapphire, lieutenant (Br), thin
v, vv, f, ph vine, savvy, of, Stephen
th, chth, phth, tth thin, chthonic, phthisis, Matthew
th them, breathe
s, c, ss, sc, st, ps, sch (in some dialects), cc, se, ce, z (in some dialects) song, city, mess, scene, listen, psychology, schism, flaccid, horse, juice, citizen
s, z, x, zz, ss, ze, c (in some dialects) has, zoo, xylophone, fuzz, scissors, breeze, electricity
sh, ti, ci, ssi, si, ss, ch, s, sci, ce, sch, sc shin, nation, special, mission, expansion, tissue, machine, sugar, conscience, ocean, schmooze, crescendo
si, s, g, z, j, zh, ti, sh (in some dialects) division, leisure, genre, seizure, jeté, Zhytomyr, equation, Pershing
ch, t, tch, ti, c, cz, tsch chin, nature, batch, bastion (some accents), cello, Czech, Deutschmark
g, j, dg, dge, d, di, gi, ge, dj, gg magic, jump, ledger, bridge, graduate, soldier, Belgian, dungeon, Djibouti, exaggerate
h, wh, j, ch he, who, fajita, chutzpah
y, i, j, ll yes, onion, hallelujah, tortilla
l, ll, lh line, hallo, Lhasa
-ll, -l ball, halt
w, u, o, ou, wh (in most dialects) we, queen, choir, Ouija board, what
wh (in some dialects) wheel


Vowels
IPA spelling example
e, ea, ee, e…e, ae, ei, i…e, ie, eo, oe, ie...e, ay, ey, i, y, oi, ue, ey be, beach, bee, cede, Caesar, deceit, machine, field, people, amoeba, hygiene, quay, key, ski, city, chamois, Portuguese, geyser (Br)
i, y, ui, e, ee, ie, o, u, a, ei, ee, ia, ea, i...e, ai, ey, oe bit, myth, build, pretty, been (some accents), sieve, women, busy, damage, counterfeit, carriage, mileage, medicine, bargain, Ceylon, oedema
oo, u, o, u…e, ou, ew, ue, o…e, ui, eu, oeu, oe, ough, wo, ioux, ieu, ault, oup, w tool, luminous, who, flute, soup, jewel, true, lose, fruit, maneuver (US), manoeuvre (Br), canoe, through, two, Sioux, lieutenant (US), Sault Sainte Marie, c'oup', c'w'm
oo, u, o, oo...e, or, ou, oul l'oo'k, f'u'll, w'o'lf, g'oo's'e'berry, w'or'sted, c'ou'rier, sh'oul'd
a, a…e, ay, ai, ai...e, aig, aigh, ao, au, e (é), e...e, ea, ei, ei...e, eig, eigh, ee (ée), eh, et, ey, ez, er, ie, ae, eg p'a'per, r'a't'e', p'ay', r'ai'n, coc'ai'n'e', arr'aig'n, str'aigh't, g'ao'l (Br), g'au'ge, ukul'e'le (caf'é'), cr'e'p'e', st'ea'k, v'ei'l, b'ei'g'e', r'eig'n, 'eigh't, matin'ee' (soir'ée'), 'eh', ball'et', ob'ey', ch'ez', dossi'er', linger'ie' (US), regg'ae', th'eg'n
a, e, o, u, ai, ou, eig, y, ah, ough, gh, ae, oi 'a'nother, anth'e'm, awes'o'me, atri'u'm, mount'ai'n, call'ou's, for'eig'n, ber'y'l, Messi'ah', bor'ough' (Br), Edinbur'gh', Mich'ae'l, porp'oi'se
o, o…e, oa, ow, ou, oe, oo, eau, oh, ew, au, aoh, ough, eo s'o', b'o'n'e', b'oa't, kn'ow', s'ou'l, f'oe', br'oo'ch, b'eau', 'oh', s'ew', m'au've, phar'aoh', furl'ough', y'eo'man
e, ea, a, ae, ai, ay, ea…e, ei, eo, ie, ieu, u, ue, oe m'e't, w'ea'ther, m'a'ny, 'ae'sthetic, s'ai'd, s'ay's, cl'ea'ns'e', h'ei'fer, j'eo'pardy, fr'ie'nd, l'ieu'tenant (Br), b'u'ry, g'ue'ss, f'oe'tid
a, ai, al, au, i h'a'nd, pl'ai'd, s'al'mon, l'au'gh (some accents), mer'i'ngue
u, o, o…e, oe, ou, oo, wo s'u'n, s'o'n, c'o'm'e', d'oe's, t'ou'ch, fl'oo'd, t'wo'pennce
a, au, aw, ough, augh, o, oa, oo, al, uo, u f'a'll, 'au'thor, j'aw', b'ough't, c'augh't, c'o'rd, br'oa'd, d'oo'r, w'al'k, fl'uo'rine (Br), s'u're (some accents)
o, a, eau, ach, au, ou l'o'ck, w'a'tch, bur'eau'cracy, y'ach't, s'au'sage, c'ou'gh
i…e, i, y, igh, ie, ei, eigh, uy, ai, ey, ye, eye, y…e, ae, ais, is, ig, ic, ay, ui f'i'n'e', Chr'i'st, tr'y', h'igh', t'ie', 'ei'dos, h'eigh't, b'uy', 'ai'sle, g'ey'ser (US), d'ye', 'eye', t'y'p'e', m'ae'stro, 'ais'le, 'is'le, s'ig'n, ind'ic't, k'ay'ak, g'ui'de
ar, a, er, ear, a…e, ua, aa, au, ou c'ar', f'a'ther, s'er'geant, h'ear't, 'a'r'e', g'ua'rd, baz'aa'r, 'au'nt, 'ou'r (some accents)
er, ar, ere, are, aire, eir, air, aa, aer, ayr, ear station'er'y (some accents), v'ar'y, wh'ere', w'are', million'aire', h'eir', h'air', 'Aa'ron, 'aer'ial, 'Ayr', b'ear'
oi, oy, aw, uoy oy…e, eu f'oi'l, t'oy', l'aw'yer, b'uoy', garg'oy'l'e', Fr'eu'dian
ou, ow, ough, au, ao 'ou't, n'ow', b'ough', t'au', L'ao's
er, or, ur, ir, yr, our, ear, err, eur, yrrh, ar, oeu, olo, uer f'er'n, w'or'st, t'ur'n, th'ir'st, m'yr'tle, j'our'ney, 'ear'th, 'err', amat'eur', m'yrrh', gramm'ar', hors doeu'vre, c'olo'nel, G'uer'nsey
u, u…e, eu, ue, iew, eau, ieu, ueue, ui, ewe, ew m'u'sic*, 'u's'e', f'eu'd, c'ue', v'iew', b'eau'tiful*, ad'ieu'*, q'ueue', n'ui'sance*, 'ewe', f'ew', * in some dialects, see Yod dropping


Diacritics


English includes some words that can be written with accent marks. These words have mostly been imported from other languages, usually French. But it is increasingly rare for writers of English to actually use the accent marks for common words, even in very formal writing. The strongest tendency to retain the accent is in words that are atypical of English morphology and therefore still perceived as slightly foreign. For example, café and pâté both have a pronounced final e, which would be "silent" by the normal English pronunciation rules.

Some examples: appliqué, attaché, blasé, bric-à-brac, brötchen, café, cliché, crème, crêpe, façade, fiancé(e), flambé, naïve, naïveté, né(e), papier-mâché, passé, piñata, protégé, raison d’être, résumé, risqué, über-, vis-à-vis, voilà.

Some words such as rôle and hôtel were first seen with accents when they were borrowed into English, but now the accent is almost never used. The words were considered very French borrowings when first used in English, even accused by some of being foreign phrases used where English alternatives would suffice, but today their French origin is largely forgotten. The accent on "élite" has disappeared from most publications today, though Time and the New Yorker
The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an United States magazine that publishes reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Starting as a weekly in the mid-1920s, the magazine is now published 47 times per year, with five of these issues covering two-week spans....
 magazines still use it. For some words such as "soupçon" however, the only spelling found in English dictionaries (the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press , is a comprehensive dictionary of the English language. Two fully-bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989; as of December 2008 the dictionary's current editors have completed a quarter of the third edition....
 and others) uses the diacritic.

Italic
Italic type

In typography, italic type refers to cursive typefaces based on a stylized form of calligraphic handwriting. The influence from calligraphy can be seen in their usual slight slanting to the right....
s, with appropriate accents, are generally applied to foreign terms that are uncommonly used in or have not been assimilated into English: for example, adiós
Adios

Adi?s is Spanish language for "goodbye". Literally translated, the word is the contraction of "a" and "Dios" , from the old Spanish phrase "A Dios vais" , which appears in the novel Don Quixote....
, coup d'état
Coup d'état

A coup d??tat , often simply called a coup, is the sudden unconstitutional overthrow of a government by a part of the state establishment – usually the military – to replace the branch of the stricken government, either with another civil government or with a military government....
, crème brûlée
Crème brûlée

Cr?me br?l?e , burnt cream, crema catalana, or Trinity cream is a dessert consisting of a rich custard base topped with a layer of hard caramel, created by caramelizing sugar under a broiling, with a blowtorch or other intense heat source, or by pouring cooked caramel on top of the custard....
, pièce de résistance
Pièce de résistance

Pi?ce de r?sistance is a French language term , translated into English language literally as "piece of resistance", referring to the best part or feature of something , a showpiece, or highlight....
, raison d'être
Raison D'être

Raison d'?tre is a phrase borrowed from French where it means simply "reason for being"; in English use it also comes to suggest a degree of rationalization, as "The claimed reason for the existence of something or someone"....
, über
Über

?ber or ueber comes from the German language. It is acognate of both Latin super and Greek ?p?? , as well as English Language over....
 (übermensch
Übermensch

The ?bermensch is a concept in the Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Friedrich Nietzsche posited the ?bermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself in his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra ....
), vis-à-vis
Vis-à-vis

Vis-?-vis in English most commonly means wikt:regard or wikt:relation. Vis-?-vis, from the French language , is:* A term that is used to describe things which are in direct relation to one another...
.

It was formerly common in English to use a diaeresis mark
Umlaut (diacritic)

The word umlaut is the name of a type of sound shift in spoken language and of the diacritic mark used to represent it Orthography. The diacritic mark comprises a pair of dots or lines placed over the letter that represents the affected Vowel....
 to indicate a hiatus
Hiatus (linguistics)

Hiatus in linguistics is the separate pronunciation of two adjacent vowels, sometimes with an intervening glottal stop. In poetic metre , hiatus can also refer to the failure of two vowels straddling a word boundary to coalesce, for example by elision of the first vowel....
: for example, coöperate, daïs, reëlect. The New Yorker
The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an United States magazine that publishes reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Starting as a weekly in the mid-1920s, the magazine is now published 47 times per year, with five of these issues covering two-week spans....
 and Technology Review
Technology Review

Technology Review is a magazine published by Technology Review, Inc, a media company owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was originally founded in 1899, and was re-launched on April 23, 1998 under then publisher R....
 magazines still use it for this purpose, even though this increasingly rare in modern English. Nowadays the diaeresis is normally left out (cooperate), or a hyphen is used (co-operate). It is, however, still common in loanwords such as naïve and noël.

Written accents are also used occasionally in poetry
Poetry

Poetry is a form of literature art in which language is used for its aesthetics and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning ....
 and scripts for drama
Drama

Drama is the specific Mode of fiction Mimesis in performance. The term comes from a Ancient Greek word meaning "Action " , which is derived from "to do" ....
tic performances to indicate that a certain normally unstressed syllable in a word should be stressed for dramatic effect, or to keep with the metre of the poetry. This use is frequently seen in archaic and pseudoarchaic writings with the "-ed" suffix, to indicate that the "e" should be fully pronounced, as with cursèd.

In certain older texts (typically British
British English

British English or UK English is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere....
), the use of ligatures
Ligature (typography)

In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes are joined as a single glyph. Ligatures usually replace consecutive characters sharing common components, and are part of a more general class of glyphs called "contextual forms" where the specific shape of a letter depends on context such as surrounding letters or prox...
 is common in words such as archæology, diarrhœa, and encyclopædia. Such words have Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 or Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 origin. Nowadays, the ligatures have been generally replaced in British English by the separated digraph
Digraph

Digraph may refer to:* Digraph , a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
 "ae" and "oe" ("encyclopaedia", "diarrhoea"; but usually "economy", "ecology") and in American English
American English

PhonologyIn many ways, compared to English language in England, North American English is conservative in its phonology. Some distinctive accents can be found on the East Coast of the United States , partly because these areas were in contact with England, and imitated prestigious varieties of English English at a time when those varieties we...
 by "e" ("encyclopedia", "diarrhea"; but usually "paean", "amoeba", "oedipal", "Caesar").

Irregularities


The English spelling system, compared to the systems used in other languages, is quite irregular and complex. Although French presents a similar degree of difficulty when encoding (writing), English is more difficult when decoding (reading). English has never had any formal regulating authority, like the Spanish
Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
 Real Academia Española
Real Academia Española

[Image:Estatutos rae 1715big.jpg|thumb|200px|Frontispiece: Fundaci?n y estatutos de la Real Academia Espa?ola The Real Academia Espa?ola , the RAE, is the official royal institution responsible for regulating the Spanish language....
, Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
 Accademia della Crusca
Accademia della Crusca

The Accademia della Crusca is an Italian institution that brings together scholars and experts in Italian linguistics and philology. It was founded in Renaissance Florence in 1582 by Antonio Francesco Grazzini, commonly known as Il Lasca....
 or the French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
 Académie française
Académie française

L'Acad?mie fran?aise, or the French Academy, is the pre-eminent France learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Acad?mie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to Louis XIII of France....
, so attempts to regularize or reform the language, including spelling reform
Spelling reform

Many languages have undergone spelling reform, where a deliberate, often officially sanctioned or mandated, change to spelling takes place. Proposals for such reform are also common....
, have usually met with failure.

The only significant exceptions were the reforms of Noah Webster
Noah Webster

File:Noah Webster engraving.jpgNoah Webster was an American lexicographer, textbook author, spelling reformer, word enthusiast, and editor. He has been called the ?Father of American Scholarship and Education.? His ?Blue-Backed Speller? books were used to teach spelling and reading to five generations of American children....
 which resulted in many of the differences between British and American spelling, such as center/centre, and dialog/dialogue. (Other differences, such as -ize/-ise in realize/realise etc, came about
Language change

Language change is the manner in which the Phonetics, Morphology , Semantics, Syntax, and other features of a language are modified over time. All languages are continually changing....
 separately; see American and British English spelling differences
American and British English spelling differences

American and British English spelling differences are one aspect of American and British English differences.The spelling systems of Commonwealth of Nations countries, for the most part, closely resemble the British system....
 for details.)

Besides the quirks the English spelling system has inherited from its past, there are other idiosyncrasies in spelling that make it tricky to learn. English contains 24-27 (depending on dialect) separate consonant
Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx....
 phoneme
Phoneme

In human language, a phoneme is the smallest posited linguistically distinctive unit of sound. Phonemes carry no semantic content themselves. In theoretical terms, phonemes are not the physical segment s themselves, but cognitive abstractions or categorizations of them....
s and, depending on dialect
Dialect

A dialect is a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class....
, anywhere from fourteen to twenty vowel
Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis....
s. However, there are only 26 letters in the modern English alphabet
Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
, so there cannot be a one-to-one correspondence between letters and sounds. Many sounds are spelled using different letters or multiple letters, and for those words whose pronunciation is predictable from the spelling, the sounds denoted by the letters depend on the surrounding letters. For example, the digraph
Digraph (orthography)

A digraph, bigraph , or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined....
 "th" represents two different sounds (the voiced interdental fricative and the voiceless interdental fricative) (see Pronunciation of English th
Pronunciation of English th

In English, the digraph th represents in most cases one of two different phonemes: the voiced dental fricative and the voiceless dental fricative ....
), and the voiceless alveolar fricative
Voiceless alveolar fricative

The voiceless alveolar fricatives are consonantal sounds. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents these sounds depends on whether a sibilant or non-sibilant fricative is being described....
 can be represented by the letters "s" and "c".

Of course, such a philosophy can be taken too far. For instance, there was also a period when the spellings of words was altered in what is now regarded as a misguided attempt to make them conform to what were perceived to be the etymological origins of the words. For example, the letter "b" was added to "debt" in an attempt to link it to the Latin debitum, and the letter "s" in "island" is a misplaced attempt to link it to Latin insula instead of the Norse word igland, which is the true origin of the English word. The letter "p" in "ptarmigan
Ptarmigan

The Ptarmigan, Lagopus mutaThe word ptarmigan comes from the Scottish Gaelic language t?rmachan, which may be related to torm "murmur"....
" has no etymological justification whatsoever. Some are just randomly changed: for example, 'score' used to be spelled 'skor'.

Furthermore, in most recent loanword
Loanword

A loanword is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept whereby it is the Meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself....
s, English makes no attempt to Anglicise the spellings of these words, and preserves the foreign spellings, even when they employ exotic conventions, like the Polish
Polish language

Polish , an official language of Poland, has the largest number of speakers of any West Slavic languages. Polish-speakers use the language in a uniform manner through most of Poland, and it has a regular orthography....
 "cz" in "Czech" or the Old Norse "fj" in "fjord" (although New Zealand English exclusively spells it "fiord"). In fact, instead of loans being respelled to conform to English spelling standards, sometimes the pronunciation changes as a result of pressure from the spelling. One example of this is the word "ski
Ski

A ski is a long, flat device worn on the feet designed to help the wearer slide smoothly over snow. Originally intended as an aid to travel in snowy regions, they are now primarily used for recreational and sporting purposes....
", which was adopted from Norwegian
Norwegian language

Norwegian is a North Germanic languages language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language. It is also spoken as a second language among Norwegian-Americans in the United States of America, especially in the central northern states....
 in the mid-18th century, although it didn't become common until 1900. It used to be pronounced "shee", which is similar to the Norwegian pronunciation, but the increasing popularity of the sport after the middle of the 20th century helped the "sk" pronunciation replace it.

The spelling of English continues to evolve. Many loanwords come from languages where the pronunciation of vowels corresponds to the way they were pronounced in Old English, which is similar to the Italian or Spanish pronunciation of the vowels, and is the value the vowel symbols [a], [e], [i], [o], and [u] have in the International Phonetic Alphabet
International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic....
. As a result, there is a somewhat regular system of pronouncing "foreign" words in English, and some borrowed words have had their spelling changed to conform to this system. For example, Hindu used to be spelled "Hindoo", and the name "Maria" used to be pronounced like the name "Mariah", but was changed to conform to this system. It has been argued that this influence probably started with the introduction of many Italian words into English during the Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
, in fields like music
Music

Music is an art form whose media is sound organized in time. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics , and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture ....
, from which come the words "andante", "viola", "forte", etc.

Commercial advertisers have also had an effect on English spelling. In attempts to differentiate their products from others, they introduce new or simplified spellings like "lite" instead of "light", "thru" instead of "through", "smokey" instead of "smoky" (for "smokey bacon" flavour crisps), and "rucsac" instead of "rucksack". The spellings of personal names have also been a source of spelling innovations: affectionate versions of women's names that sound the same as men's names have been spelled differently: Nikki and Nicky, Toni and Tony, Jo and Joe.

As examples of the idiosyncratic nature of English spelling, the combination "ou" can be pronounced in at least seven different ways: /?/ in "famous", /??/ in "journey", /a?/ in "loud", /?/ in "should", /u?/ in "you", /a??/ in "flour", /??/ in "tour"; and the vowel sound /i?/ in "me" can be spelt in at least ten different ways: "p'ae'diatric", "m'e'", "s'ea't", "s'ee'm", "'cei'ling", "p'eo'ple", "chimn'ey'", "mach'i'ne", "s'ie'ge", "ph'oe'nix". (These examples assume a more-or-less standard non-regional British English accent. Other accents will vary.)

Sometimes everyday speakers of English change a counterintuitive pronunciation simply because it is counterintuitive. Changes like this are not usually seen as "standard", but can become standard if used enough. An example is the word "miniscule", which still competes with its original spelling of "minuscule", though this might also be because of analogy with the word "mini".

"Ough" words


The most notorious group of letters in the English language, ough, is commonly pronounced at least ten different ways, six of which are illustrated in the construct, Though the tough cough and hiccough plough him through, which is quoted by Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein

Robert Anson Heinlein was an United States novelist and science fiction writer. Often called "the dean of science fiction writers", he is one of the most popular, influential, and controversial authors of the genre....
 in The Door into Summer
The Door into Summer

The Door into Summer is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, originally serialized in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and 1957 in literature....
 to illustrate the difficulties facing automated speech transcription and reading. Ough is in fact a word in its own right; it is an exclamation of disgust similar to "ugh".

  • though: // as in t'oe;
  • tough: // as in c'uff;
  • cough: as in off;
  • hiccough (a now uncommon variant of hiccup): // as in up;
  • plough (no longer used in American English): // as in c'ow;
  • through: // as in b'oo.


History of the English spelling system


Throughout the history of the English language
History of the English language

English language is a West Germanic languages which originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Germanic tribes from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the northern Netherlands....
, these inconsistencies have gradually increased in number. There are a number of contributing factors. First, gradual changes in pronunciation, such as the Great Vowel Shift
Great Vowel Shift

The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place in the south of England between 1200 and 1600....
, account for a tremendous number of irregularities. Second, relatively recent loan words from other languages generally carry their original spellings, which are often not phonetic in English. The Romanization
Romanization

In linguistics, romanization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Latin alphabet, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system ....
 of languages (e.g., Chinese
Chinese language

Chinese or the Sinitic language is a language family consisting of language mutually unintelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan languages of languages....
) using alphabets derived from the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
 has further complicated this problem, for example when pronouncing Chinese place names. Third, some prescriptivists have had partial success in their attempts to normalize the English language, forcing a change in spelling but not in pronunciation.

The regular spelling system of Old English
Old English language

Old English is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century....
 was swept away by the Norman Conquest, and English itself was eclipsed by French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
 for three centuries, eventually emerging with its spelling much influenced by French. English had also borrowed large numbers of words from French, which for reasons of prestige and familiarity kept their French spellings. The spelling of Middle English
Middle English

Middle English is the name given by historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman conquest of England of 1066 and about 1470, when the #Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the introduction of the printing press into England by William...
, such as in the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer was an English author, poet, philosopher, Bureaucracy, Noble court and diplomat. Although he wrote many works, he is best remembered for his unfinished frame narrative The Canterbury Tales....
, is very irregular and inconsistent, with the same word being spelled differently, sometimes even in the same sentence. However, these were generally much better guides to pronunciation than modern English spelling can honestly claim.

For example, the sound , normally written u, is spelled with an o in son, love, come, etc., due to Norman spelling conventions which prohibited writing u before v, m, n due to the graphical confusion that would result. (v, u, n were identically written with two minim
Minim (palaeography)

In palaeography, a minim is a short, vertical stroke used in handwriting. The word is derived from the Latin minimum, meaning "least" or "smallest"....
s in Norman handwriting; w was written as two u letters; m was written with three minims
Minim (palaeography)

In palaeography, a minim is a short, vertical stroke used in handwriting. The word is derived from the Latin minimum, meaning "least" or "smallest"....
, hence mm looked like vun, nvu, uvu, etc.) Similarly, spelling conventions also prohibited final v. Hence the identical spellings of the three different vowel sounds in love, grove and prove are due to ambiguity in the Middle English
Middle English

Middle English is the name given by historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman conquest of England of 1066 and about 1470, when the #Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the introduction of the printing press into England by William...
 spelling system, not sound change.

There was also a series of linguistic sound changes towards the end of this period, including the Great Vowel Shift
Great Vowel Shift

The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place in the south of England between 1200 and 1600....
, which resulted in "i" in "mine" changing from a pure vowel to a diphthong. These changes for the most part did not detract from the rule-governed nature of the spelling system; but in some cases they introduced confusing inconsistencies, like the well-known example of the many pronunciations of "ough" (rough, through, though, trough, plough, etc.). Most of these changes happened before the arrival of printing in England. However, the arrival of the printing press merely froze the current system, rather than providing the impetus for a realignment of spelling with pronunciation. Furthermore, it introduced further inconsistencies, partly because of the use of typesetters trained abroad, particularly in the Low Countries
Low Countries

The Low Countries, the historical region of de Nederlanden, are the country on low-lying land around the river delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse River rivers....
. For example, the "h" in "ghost" was influenced by Dutch. The addition and deletion of a silent "e" at the ends of words was also sometimes used to make the right-hand margin line up more neatly.

By the time dictionaries were introduced in the mid 1600s, the spelling system of English started to stabilize, and by the 1800s, most words had set spellings.

See also


  • Alternative political spellings
  • American and British English spelling differences
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  • Apostrophe
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  • Basic Roman spelling of English
    Basic Roman spelling of English

    The Basic Roman spelling of English language is a 2002 proposal for English spelling regularity based on five underlying principles:In compliance with these phonemic principles, Basic Roman explicates the vowel alternations in stressed syllables originating in the Great Vowel Shift of Early Modern English, offering a wider international per...
  • Classical compound
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  • Disc or disk (spelling)
  • English language
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  • English phonology
    English phonology

    English phonology is the study of the phonology of the English language. Like all languages, spoken English has wide variation in its pronunciation both Historical linguistics and Descriptive linguistics from dialect to dialect....
  • English plural
    English plural

    In the English language, nouns are inflection for grammatical number?that is, Grammatical number or plural. This article discusses the variety of ways in which English plurals are formed....
  • English spelling reform
    English spelling reform

    English spelling reform is the collective term for various campaigns and efforts to change the spelling of the English language to make it simpler and more rationally consistent....
  • False etymology
    False etymology

    A false etymology is an assumed or postulated etymology that current consensus among scholars of historical linguistics holds to be incorrect. Many false etymologies may also be described as folk etymologies, the distinction being that folk etymologies are widely believed to be true, and of anonymous origin....
  • Ghoti
    Ghoti

    Ghoti is a constructed example used to illustrate irregularities in English language spelling. It is a respelling of the word fish, and like fish is ....
  • I before E except after C
    I before e except after c

    "I before e, except after c" is a mnemonic device devised to help students remember how to English spelling certain words in the English language....
  • Initial-stress-derived noun
    Initial-stress-derived noun

    Initial-stress derivation is a phonology process in English language, wherein verbs become nouns or adjectives when the Stress is moved to the first syllable from a later one — usually, but not always, the second....
  • International Phonetic Alphabet for English
  • Internet spelling
    Internet spelling

    Internet spelling is a term to describe the use of words in an official Internet related context , but are misspelled to such a point, that a large number of people use the alternative spelling....
  • List of English homographs
    List of English homographs

    Homonym are words that are spelled the same, but have different meanings.Note: BrE = British English, AmE = American English. When not given, the pronunciation is believed to be the same in both dialects...
  • List of English words containing Q not followed by U
    List of English words containing Q not followed by U

    In English language, the letter q is usually followed by the letter u, but there are some exceptions. The majority of these are naturalised from Arabic language, Chinese language, Hebrew language, Inuktitut, or other languages which do not use the English alphabet, with q representing a sound not found in English....
  • List of names in English with counterintuitive pronunciations
  • List of the longest English words with one syllable
    List of the longest English words with one syllable

    This is a list of candidates for longest English language word of one syllable, i.e. monosyllables with the most letters. Some candidates are questionable on grounds of spelling, pronunciation, or status as obsolete, dialect, proper noun, or nonce word....
  • List of unusual English words
  • Long S
    Long s

    The long, medial or descending s is a form of the Lower case letter 's' formerly used where 's' occurred in the middle or at the beginning of a word, for example ?infulne?s ....
  • Longest word in English
    Longest word in English

    The identity of the longest word in English depends upon the definition of what constitutes a "word" in the English language, as well as how "length" should be compared....
  • Misspelling
  • Regional accents of English
  • Sensational spelling
    Sensational spelling

    Sensational spelling is the deliberate spelling of a word in an incorrect or non-standard way for special effects.Sensational spellings are common in advertising and product placement....
  • Spelling bee
    Spelling bee

    A spelling bee is a competition where contestants, usually children, are asked to spelling English language words. The concept is thought to have originated in the United States, and is usually perceived to be a solely English language practice....
  • Three letter rule
    Three letter rule

    In English spelling, the three letter rule is the observation that one- and two-letter words tend to be function words such as I, at, he, if, of, or, etc....
  • Weak form and strong form
    Weak form and strong form

    In the phonology of stress-timed languages, the weak form of a word is a form that may be used when the word has no stress, and which is phoneme distinct from the strong form, used when the word is stressed....


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    Noam Chomsky

    Avram Noam Chomsky is an United States linguistics, philosopher, cognitive science, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute Professor emeritus and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology....
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    The Sound Pattern of English

    The Sound Pattern of English is a work on phonology by Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle. It presents a comprehensive view of the phonology of English language, and stands as a landmark both in the field of phonology and in the analysis of the English language....
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    Otto Jespersen

    Jens Otto Harry Jespersen or Otto Jespersen was a Denmark linguistics who specialized in the grammar of the English language language.He was born in Randers in northern Jutland and attended Copenhagen University, earning degrees in English, French language, and Latin....
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    H. L. Mencken

    Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken , was an United States journalist, essayist, magazine editing, satire, acerbic Social criticism of American American way and Culture of the United States, and a student of American English....
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    The American Language

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External links

  • - Information on teaching English spelling
  • Rules for English Spelling: , , , ,
  • Research based Tutoring of English Spelling
  • describes rules which predict a word's pronunciation from its spelling with 85% accuracy
  • and at .