Editing Spelling reform (section)

== Arguments for reform ==

In languages written with a phonetic script (such as an [[alphabet]], [[syllabary]], [[abugida]] or, to a lesser extent, [[abjad]]), one might expect that there would be a close match of the script or spelling with the [[phonetics|spoken sound]]. However, even if they match at one time and place for some speakers, over time they often do not match well for the majority: one sound may be represented by various combinations of letters and one letter or group of letters pronounced differently. In cases where spelling takes account of [[Grammar|grammatical]] features, these too may become inconsistent.

People who use [[standard language|non-standard]] spelling often suffer from adverse opinions, as a person's mastery of standard spelling is often equated to their level of formal education or intelligence. Spelling is easier in languages with more or less consistent spelling systems, such as [[Finnish language|Finnish]], [[Serbian language|Serbian]], [[Italian language|Italian]] and [[Spanish language|Spanish]], owing either to the fact that pronunciation in these languages has changed relatively little since the establishment of their spelling systems, or the fact that ''non-phonemic etymological'' spellings have been replaced with ''phonemic unetymological'' spellings as pronunciation changed. Guessing the spelling of a word is more difficult after pronunciation changes significantly, thus yielding a ''non-phonetic etymological'' spelling system such as [[Irish language|Irish]] or [[French language|French]]. These spelling systems are still 'phonemic' (rather than 'phonetic') since pronunciation can be systematically derived from spelling, although the converse (i.e. spelling from pronunciation) may not be possible. [[English language|English]] is an extreme example of a [[defective orthography]] in which spelling cannot be systematically derived from pronunciation, but it also has the more unusual problem that pronunciation cannot be systematically derived from spelling.

Spelling reforms have been proposed for various languages over the years; these have ranged from modest attempts to eliminate particular irregularities (such as [[SR1]] or [[Initial Teaching Alphabet]]) through more far-reaching reforms (such as [[Cut Spelling]]) to attempts to introduce a full [[phonemic orthography]], like the [[Shavian alphabet]] or its revised version, [[Quikscript]], the latest [[DevaGreek]] alphabet,<ref>[http://www.fonetikspell.info/devagreek.htm Extended English Alphabet with Devanagari Orthography]</ref> the [[Turkish alphabet|Latinization of Turkish]] or [[hangul]] in [[Korea]].

Redundancy of [[graphemes|letters]] is often an issue in spelling reform, which prompts the "Economic Argument"—significant cost savings in the production materials over time—as promulgated by [[George Bernard Shaw]].

The idea of phonemic spelling has also been criticized as it would hide [[morphology (linguistics)|morphological]] similarities between words with differing pronunciations, thus obscuring their meanings. It is also argued that when people read, they do not try to work out the series of sounds composing each word, but instead they recognize words either as a whole or as a short series of meaningful units (for example ''morphology'' might be read as ''morph''+''ology'', rather than as a longer series of [[phoneme]]s). In a system of phonetic spelling, these morphemes become less distinct, due to the various pronunciations of [[allomorph]]s. For example, in English spelling, most [[past participle]]s are spelled with ''-ed'', even though its pronunciation can vary (compare ''raised'' and ''lifted'').

One of the difficulties in introducing a spelling reform is how to reflect different pronunciations, often linked to regions or classes. If the reform seeks to be totally phonemic in a model dialect, speakers of other dialects will find conflicts with their own usage.