According to an article I came across today, dyslexic children tend to it easier to read and write Welsh, with its regular and consistent spelling system, then English, with its somewhat eccentric orthography. Similarly, few children have problems spelling other regular languages like Italian and Spanish.
However dyslexic children who start by learning Welsh, then later learn English tend to find English spelling very challenging and often use Welsh-style spelling when writing English.
Here are some examples of English spelled with Welsh phonetics:
Ddy cwic brawn ffocs jymps owfer ddy leisi dog.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Tw bi o not tw bi: ddat is ddy cwestiyn.
To be or not to be: that is the question.
The article also mentions that dyslexic children tend to have more trouble getting to grips with Welsh grammar than with English grammar.
This may be why spelling-bees are mainly a U.S. and U.K. phenomenon. English spelling is needlessly complicated. Although, French seems to be, too, I’ve heard that the orthography is fairly regular and straightforward depsite appearances to the contrary.
english spelling is intentionally complex to confuse foreigners
It adds to the “mystique”
James–Sadly, I doubt there was little “intention” at all involved in the formation of English spelling. Which is the crux of the problem. 😉
I wonder, is Dyslexia related as well to speech, way of writing, speed of writing …etc? or is it only related to spelling troubles?
TJ – dyslexia, which comes from the Greek for ‘difficulty with words’, and can involve difficulties with spelling, reading, dates and organisation of thoughts.
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Gah! I just reread what I wrote, and I should’ve said, “I doubt there was MUCH ‘intention’ at all.” Sheesh…and that just goes to show you that “native speaker” does not mean “perfect.”
Middle English had a perfectly good spelling system (so did Old English), similar to German today, but then things went wrong: French loan words (among others) that didn’t conform to the Germanic orthography flooded the language; the Great Vowel shift occured, in which long vowels were raised (became closer) and diphthongized , i.e. long i [i:] > [aɪ], long a [a:] > [eɪ]; and certain sounds stopped being pronounced, i.e. knight [knɪxt] > [naɪt]. This is how I understand it, but I am not a (trained/professional) linguist.
My sister Lilian, when was a child had 6 different kinds of dyslexia, in Portuguese language ( I remember 4 of them) P-b, m-n, d-t, g-c
the word pot she said bot
the moon she said noon
dot changed to tot
get changed to cat
This was a real problem for my mother who had to work out, and early in morning she had to give breakfast with milk, in Portuguese milk’s cream is NATA, and NADA means nothing. My sister everyday sais she didn’t want anything to beakfast, but as she had dyslexia my mother understood that my sister didn’t want only milk’s cream I don’t want nothing would be Eu não quero NATA,(the correct sentence is Eu não quero nada (ENGLISH- I don’t wan’t cream to I don’t want anything. After bothering a lot my mother I had to enter into the homely war to say that besides she didn’t want NATA (cream) she also didn’t to eat anything. So mummy went work at 7 AM stressed everyday
Is there any chance of spelling reform for modern English? The only proposal(s) I’ve ever seen were jokes.
Well the Americans started the project to reform spelling but didn’t get very far…
No-one wants to see their language change even if they agree it would lead to ease of spelling and even when change in inevitable. I speak differently from my grandparents and my grandchildren will speak differently from me. Whilst I go against the system now I will undoubtable complain about the speech of my grandchildren. 😀 It’s a fact of life, like death and taxes.
However we should get rid of the idea that we can match spelling to sound as all across the world different nations and regions pronounce their letters (especially vowels) differently. A standard written system allows for ease of written communication. So we sacrifice a more phonetic spelling for greater global understanding.
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