How the English language became such a mess - BBC
2015年6月8日 · James Harbeck investigates why the English language became so hard to spell – and why we only have ourselves to blame. You may have seen a poem by Gerard Nolst Trinité called The Chaos. It...
Why is the English spelling system so weird and inconsistent
2021年7月26日 · English spelling is ridiculous. Sew and new don’t rhyme. Kernel and colonel do. When you see an ough, you might need to read it out as ‘aw’ (thought), ‘ow’ (drought), ‘uff’ (tough), ‘off’ (cough), ‘oo’ (through), or ‘oh’ (though). The ea vowel is usually pronounced ‘ee’ (weak, please, seal, beam) but can also be ‘eh’ (bread, head, wealth, feather).
The absurdity of English spelling and why we’re stuck with it
2015年7月26日 · There are a number of letters in English that are not pronounced or pronounced differently in certain words. This pattern of irregularity affects about 25% of English words, but within that 25%...
Why English pronunciation differs so much from written …
2010年8月17日 · The Great Vowel Shift caused the pronunciation of English long vowels to change, and many of them to become diphthongs. This is discussed in great detail in the Wikipedia article, including some nice charts. As a result, many English written vowels are not pronounced as you might expect--although the pronunciation of vowels affected by the ...
The Spelling Bee highlights why it's so hard to spell in English
2022年6月2日 · Some letters in English have come to represent more than one sound. Individual reasons vary, but these letters can often be found in words that have been borrowed from outside languages (called...
Why is English pronunciation, especially of vowels, so weird ... - Reddit
2020年12月13日 · English is mainly a mix of germanic and romance languages. It borrows words from all over the place, hence the irregular vowel sounds. Throw the great vowel shift on top of that and you get a lot of inconsistencies. English major here. Most languages have 1 or 2 sources.
The Eccentric History Of English Spelling (And Why It’s So …
Why is English spelling so maddeningly inconsistent and odd? Germanic Roots. Maybe the language’s spelling is so confusing because its history is equally messy. A quick browse through English history indicates the recurrent colonization, occupation and visitation of the British Isles by a vast number of tribes and cultures over the centuries.
ELI5: Why is the English language so inconsistent with ... - Reddit
Some of it is due to taking on words from other languages, but a big reason is that English spelling used to reflect actual pronunciation, but it largely got fixed around the 15th century, while pronunciation kept evolving. The words you're talking about have been in English for a long time, unlike a lot of the examples the other commenters are ...
historical linguistics - Why is English spelling so inconsistent ...
English spelling is phonetic, to a certain extent. It's just it was meant to (more or less) write down the language as it was about 700 years ago, and there's not been a consistent or generalized effort to update the spelling to reflect the newer developments in pronunciation. English is far from alone in this department.
Why is English spelling so weird? - ELT Learning Journeys
2016年1月25日 · Modern English has a phoneme inventory of 44 sounds (with some variation according to dialect) but only 26 letters with which to write them. Since its very earliest days, this mismatch has been a key obstacle to spelling the language in a regular manner.