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English had also borrowed large numbers of words from French, and kept their French spellings. The spelling of Middle English is very irregular and inconsistent, with the same word being spelled in different ways, sometimes even in the same sentence. However, these were generally much better guides to the then-pronunciation than modern English ...
The spelling systems for some languages, such as Spanish or Italian, are relatively simple because they adhere closely to the ideal one-to-one correspondence between sounds and the letter patterns that represent them. In English the spelling system is more complex and varies considerably in the degree to which it follows uniform patterns. There ...
The spelling structures for some alphabetic languages, such as Spanish, Russian and German, are comparatively orthographically transparent, or orthographically shallow, because there is nearly a one-to-one correspondence between sounds and the letter patterns that represent them. English spelling is more complex, a deep orthography, partly ...
These situations have prompted proposals for spelling reform in English. [266] Although letters and speech sounds do not have a one-to-one correspondence in standard English spelling, spelling rules that take into account syllable structure, phonetic changes in derived words, and word accent are reliable for most English words. [267]
The American spelling, akin to Greek, is the earliest known spelling in English. [172] It was preferred by Fowler, and is used by many Canadians, where it is the earlier form. [12] Sceptic also pre-dates the European settlement of the US and it follows the French sceptique and Latin scepticus.
The English word orthography is first attested in the 15th century, ultimately from Ancient Greek: ὀρθός (orthós 'correct') and γράφειν (gráphein 'to write'). [3] Orthography in phonetic writing systems is often concerned with matters of spelling, i.e. the correspondence between written graphemes and the phonemes found in speech.
The following is a handy reference for editors, listing various common spelling differences between national varieties of English. Please note: If you are not familiar with a spelling, please do some research before changing it – it may be your misunderstanding rather than a mistake, especially in the case of American and British English spelling differences.
Spelling is a set of conventions for written language regarding how graphemes should correspond to the sounds of spoken language. [1] Spelling is one of the elements of orthography, and highly standardized spelling is a prescriptive element. Spellings originated as transcriptions of the sounds of speech according to the alphabetic principle.