Well, remember: More language is spoken than written. So words stream around the world without benefit of "standardization." And, the "English" language has evolved, just like every other language. Much of the "English" language is NOT "medieval English" but Deutsch or Franco, and nowadays, Spanish, eastern European, Asian, Arab, Turkish and African. Even medieval English stems from other European roots (or, we would all be speaking whatever the blue people spoke before the Romans, Celts, and French arrived). The words have been "anglicized" or not, (whatever THAT means) depending on the time and usage. Perhaps, though, if we had had a "London Academy of Language" back in 900 a.d. -- like the "Paris Academy of Language" to keep the language pure, there would be fewer problems. The lanquedoc region of France "isn't France" according to some. In fact, some Parisians don't consider anyone outside metro Paris to be "French." That's because even if the words may be spelled the same, (can't really speak to that) they are NOT pronounced the same. >From the origin of the words, there have been consonant and vowel shifts, changing the sounds of the words. Words have been merged from two languages. All kinds of stuff like that. There were even (early) "letters" that do not exist today. The "thorn" for example, which took the place of "th" for the, this, thus. It resembles an upper case "Y", leading some to re-work it to "Ye Old Meeting house" rather than the "The Old Meeting house." Some letters have come into existence since that time. "J" for example, arrived from France ca 1100-1200. Here's an interesting (short) chronology of the development of English: http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/english/fajardo/teaching/eng520/mideng2.htm But, with the words from other languages, how would you -- an English Speaker -- spell "vare deh"? "tore tih yah"? Oh, and is that "g" a "hard g" or a "soft g" (check the origin of the word) We also have to remember that historically (before 1900) spelling in this country (US) was pretty personal -- try reading some 16th and 17th century wills, baptisms, and deeds. Even 18 and 19th century documents are rife with "alternate spellings." Frequently the same word appears with alternate spellings multiply times on the same document. BUT -- of interest here is that many clerks were, in fact, spelling "phonetically" and you can get an idea how a word or a name was being pronounced in a particular locale by the way it is spelled. A confession here -- from someone who used to be a pretty good speller and voracious reader. A character in one of the books I read in elementary school was "pen ih lope" -- oops, don't read aloud if you don't know that's Penelope. Another time, I was reading a part in a play, and said "Gee whiz." Hard G. Funny looks. That's "gee" with a soft g. Oops? Really, George Gershwin? Now, in my "silver years" I just laugh, but it wasn't so funny at the time. As the kids would say "it is what it is" and I think that very readily applies to spelling "English" words. Pat In Tucson -----Original Message----- From: roots-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:roots-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Pauline Costianes Sent: Monday, May 21, 2012 10:52 AM To: ROOTS@rootsweb.com Subject: [ROOTS-L] spelling checker We have 43 sounds, or phonemes, in English and thousands of ways to spell them. We are NOT a phonetic language - I feel sorry for anyone who has to learn to write this language.  There are 4x the dyslexics for English speakers than for phonetic languages, like Spanish, Italian etc.   George Bernard Shaw once said you could spell "Fish"  G-H-O-T-I   GH - from "enough" O - from "women" TI - from "elation"   How did English get to be such a major world language with our horrible non-phonetic spelling?  Beats the poo outta me!! Pauline Costianes, who loves Italian best, even though  I'm Greek     ===== If you would prefer digest mode to mail mode, drop a note to roots-admin@rootsweb.com and ask for the digest... ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ROOTS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message