English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. 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 alphabetic 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.
Note: In the following discussion, only one or two common pronunciations of American and British English varieties 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.
Like most alphabetic systems, letters in English orthography may represent a particular sound. For example, the word cat (pronounced /kæt/) consists of three letters c, a, and t, in which c represents the sound /k/, a the sound /æ/, and t the sound /t/.
Single letters or multiple sequences of letters may provide this function. Thus, the single letter c in the word cat represents the single sound /k/. In the word ship (pronounced /ʃɪp/), the digraph sh (two letters) represents the sound /ʃ/. In the word ditch, the three letters tch represent the sound /tʃ/.
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 ex- where it represents the consonant cluster /ks/ (for example, in the word ex-wife, pronounced /ɛkswaɪf/).
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 /f/ at the end of single-syllable, single-morpheme words, such as cough (pronounced /kɔf/ in many dialects of American English). At the beginning of syllables (i.e. the syllable onset), the digraph gh represents the sound /g/, such as in the word ghost (pronounced /gost/ or /gəʊst/). 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 /f/ in syllable onsets and never represents the sound /g/ in syllable codas. (Incidentally, this shows that ghoti does not follow English spelling rules to sound like fish.)
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 /ɪ/ in some words borrowed from Greek (reflecting an original upsilon), whereas the letter usually representing this sound in non-Greek words is the letter i. Thus, the word myth (pronounced /mɪθ/) is of Greek origin, while pith (pronounced /pɪθ/) is a Germanic word. Other examples include th representing /t/ (which is usually represented by t), ph representing /f/ (which is usually represented by f), and ch representing /k/ (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.
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 or register 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 /f/ (like telephone), could occur in an informal text.
Letters are also used to distinguish between homophones (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 /aʊə/ or /aʊr/). However, they are distinguished from each other orthographically by the addition of the letter h. Spoken language often creates subtle difference to alleviate confusion, "our" often can if desired be pronounced like "are". Another example of this is the homophones plain and plane where both are pronounced /pleɪn/, but are marked with two different orthographic representations of the vowel /eɪ/. Often this is because of the historical pronunciation of each word where, over time, two separate sounds become the same but the different spellings remain: plane used to be pronounced /pleːn/, but the /eː/ sound merged with the /eɪ/ sound in plain, making plain and plane homonyms.
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 (unlike spoken language) the reader usually has no recourse to ask the writer for clarification (whereas in a conversation, the listener can ask the speaker about lexical uncertainties). Some proponents of spelling reform 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.
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 /kɒtɪdʒ/ or /kɑtɪdʒ/). Here e indicates that the preceding g should represent the sound /dʒ/. This contrasts with the more common value of g in word-final position as the sound /g/, such as in tag (pronounced /tæɡ/).
A particular letter may have more than one pronunciation-marking role. Besides the marking of word-final g as indicating /dʒ/ 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 /æ/, whereas the a of bane is marked by the e as having the value /eɪ/.
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.
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 /ɪ/) and a pronunciation-marking function (marking the c as having the value /s/ opposed to the value /k/). For another example, see Pronunciation of English th.
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 [tʰ] 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 (or morphophonemic form) of English words.[1]
"[T]he postulated underlying forms are systematically related to the conventional orthography...and are, as is well known, related to the underlying forms of a much earlier historical stage of the language. There has, in other words, been little change in lexical representation since Middle English, and, consequently, we would expect...that lexical representation would differ very little from dialect to dialect in Modern English...[and] that conventional orthography is probably fairly close to optimal for all modern English dialects, as well as for the attested dialects of the past several hundred years."[2]
In these cases, a given morpheme (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 suffix -ed, which may be pronounced variously as [t], [d], or [ɪd] (for example, dip [dɪp], dipped [dɪpt], boom [bum], boomed [bumd], loot [lut], looted [lutɪd]). 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 suffix -er. When this suffix is added, the vowel pronunciations change:
Spelling PronunciationIt may be argued[who?] that the underlying representation of photo is a single phonological form, such as |fotɒgrɑːf|. 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.)
Another example includes words like sign (pronounced [saɪn]) and bomb (pronounced [bɑm] or [bɒm]) 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 [sɪɡnətʃər] and [bɑmbɑrd] or [bɒmbɑːd], respectively. Here it may be argued[who?] that the underlying representation of sign and bomb is |saɪgn| and |bɑmb| or |bɒmb|, in which the underlying |g| and |b| are only pronounced in the surface forms when followed by certain suffixes (-ature, -ard). Otherwise, the |g| and |b| 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 [fæst] / [fɑːst] and fasten [fæsən] / [fɑːsən] and the h in heir [ɛr] / [ɛə] and inherit [ɪnhɛrɪt].