Historical Foundations of Modern English Spelling

The alphabetic way of writing was originally based on a phonetic principle: it was designed to give an accurate graphic representation of
pronunciation by using letters to indicate sounds. Mod E spelling displays many deviations from this principle. The reasons are to be found in the
history of English sounds. OE spelling was phonetic: They attempted to use a separate letter for each distinct sound; the sound values of the letters
were for the most part the same as in Latin. Their spellings, however, were not absolutely consistent, for some letters indicated two or more sounds:
the letter 3 stood for four different phonemes, c — for two; f, ძ, Þ and s indicated two allophones each (which developed into phonemes later). ME
spelling innovations incorporated many sound changes which had taken place since the 9th—10th c, and spelling become more ambiguous and
conventional. In many instances ; the one-to-one correspondence of letter and sound had been lost. Morel letters than before had two sound values: 0
stood for o], [u], long o and [0:]; c — for [s] and [k]; g — for [g] and [dз], etc.; u could even indicate three sounds — the vowels [u] and [y] and the
consonant [v]. One and the same sound was commonly shown by different means: [dз] could be indicated by g, j or dg, [k] — by k, c and q, etc. The
digraphs introduced in ME look familiar to the modern reader, since many of them are still in use, but their application in ME was rather
contradictory. For instance, both ou and ow were used for [u:] and [oul; double 0 stood for the open and close long [o:] and [0:] alongside 0; long [e:l
and [έ:] were shown indiscriminately by ie, double e and the single letter e. The conventional principle of spelling was later reinforced by the
fixation of the written form of the word in printing and by extensive sound changes. The phoneticians and spelling reformers of the 16th c. strove to
restrict the freedom of variation and to improve English orthography by a more consistent use of letters and digraphs, and by the introduction of new
symbols. They insisted upon a strict distinction between u and v when used to indicate a vowel and a consonant: [u] and [v], e.g. Early NE loue, selues,
vnripe, unshaken later spelt as love, selves, unripe, unshaken; They introduced new digraphs to show the difference between some open and close
vowels, namely the digraph ea for [έ: ] as distinguished from e, ee, and ie used for the closed [e: ], and the digraph oa alongside 0 in open syllables for
[o:], as contrasted to 00 showing a long closed [0:]. The use of double consonants became less frequent, except in traditional spellings like kiss, sell,
but double letters were sometimes employed to show that the preceding vowel was short/ § 415. The activities of the scholars in the period of
normalisation — late 17th and the 18th c. — had a stabilising effect on the development of English spelling. The dictionaries and grammars fixed the
written forms of the words as obligatory standards. Only a few innovations were made: a few new digraphs were adopted with borrowed words, such
as ph, ps — NE photograph, psychology, ch — NE chemistry, scheme and machine, g — genre. In the 18th c. the sound changes slowed down.
Standard pronunciation (later known as RP — Received Pronunciation) and standard spelling were firmly established