The Anglish Alphabet

This is a system I hope will be accepted as Anglish's official but optional spelling reform. I think this system is worthy of that role because I specially designed it to be. Rather than fill the reform up with standardisations, innovations, Pan-Germanic elements, and anachronism for the sake of anachronism, I followed the normal Anglish procedure of only targeting foreign influence for change.

In the few ambiguous pairs that arise because ‹c› makes [tʃ], ‹k› can be used as an optional disambiguater. This is what one sees in Late Old English, throughout Middle English, and of course today in many standard modern spellings like ken and kin. In other words, if you want to tell cat and chat apart you can write kat and cat.

I settled on spellings like rice (rich) and fresc (fresh) because that seems to match modern spelling conventions the best. We avoid allowing ‹c›, ‹v›, or ‹h› to appear at the end of morphemes with the exception of ‹h› when it is in a digraph.

‹gh› is almost certainly based on ‹ȝh›, which itself was a spinoff of using ‹ȝ› for /x/, which was a spelling convention linked directly to the Norman invasion and the importation of the Carolingian ‹g›. That being so, the spelling convention in Middle English (and to a lesser extent Modern English) where /x/ is dropped or replaced is a simple and natural alternative to this French-born digraph. Such spellings have occasionally become standard or widespread, such as sluff, duff, dwarf, draft, tho, donut.

Although ‹th› had been used all the way back in Old English, ‹þ› had firmly secured its place in the English alphabet until it was knocked out when printing presses based on foreign alphabets were imported to England. ‹þ› survived for a while by being represented by ‹y› in print, but eventually printers swapped to ‹th› consistently.

I do not think ‹th› should be reverted to ‹ð› because it seems ‹ð› died off simply because it became more popular to use only ‹þ›.

I do not think ‹w› should be reverted to ‹ƿ› because the rise in popularity of ‹w› was not necessarily due to French influence. It should be noted that ‹w› was used in English orthography before French influence (although back then it was a digraph or ligature, not a full-fledged letter).

I do not think ‹wh› should be reverted to ‹hw› because even though some claim ‹hw› was swapped out for ‹wh› under influence of French ‹ch›, I think it is more likely that English ‹wr› and ‹wl› served as the basis for ‹wh›, especially after the loss of ‹hr› and ‹hl› made ‹hw› an oddity.

EVIDENCE

Below are quotes that help explain where some of the thinking behind this reform comes from.


 * "The development of people offers a good paradigm for many words ending in -LE: Lat populum > OFr poeple > ME peple > people. The final syllable of people and similar words was commonly spelt in ME with a wide variety of vowel letters, as -EL, -IL, -UL, -YL, etc. In EModE, printers showed a growing tendency to prefer the Fr -LE spelling in many words of both Franco-Lat and OE descent." - Upward C, Davidson G (2011) The History of English Spelling, Wiley-Blackwell, pages 108-110.
 * "The form anneal, however, derives from OE anælan; spellings of this word with NN are first attested in the 17th century, by analogy with Latinate forms such as annex (compare similar doubling of C, F, L in accursed, afford, allay)." - The History of English Spelling, Christopher Upward & George Davidson.

Below are attestations.


 * "Þow þat a lytyl pynt xulde coste. . ." - ?a1475 Ludus C.(Vsp D.8)173/148. Note how /x/ is not represented in the spelling of though.
 * "Bewar þat þou falle nouȝt wiþ the tree, while þat þow takest to þe þe buwes" - (a1387) Trev.Higd.(StJ-C H.1)3.445. Note how boughs is spelled buwes.
 * "Perceauing me in thot perplex'd." - 1611, William Mure, Miscellaneous Poems, ii, line 13.
 * "in Creklade bytwene þe borow of John Buckar" - a1475 Godstow Reg.(Rwl B.408)611/24.
 * "He hath pardon ten thousand And eyte hundryd ʒer." - ?a1475 Ludus C.(Vsp D.8)122/8. Note the spelling eyte for eight.
 * "Off howe many thyngges Adam was wrotte?" - c1475 Ipotis (Brm)p.30. Note the spelling wrotte for wrought.
 * "Ðo þe after him comen remden lude stefne, þus queðinde." - a1200 Trin.Hom.(Trin-C B.14.52)89. Note the spelling lude for loud.
 * "Þe stille sue æt, gruniende, hire mete." - a1300 Þe stille sue (Dgb 53)15. Note the spelling sue for sow.
 * "We scal and wele ratifye and conferme hit..by this our lettyr." - (1432) Let.Christ Ch.in RS 85.3162. Note ‹sc› still being used by some in the 15th century.
 * "Þou ne myȝt hytte nefere do. . ." - c1350(a1333) Shoreham Poems (Add 17376)91/161. Note the spelling nefere for never.