Vicksburg weekly herald. (Vicksburg, Miss.) 1868-1883, 1877-08-31


II j. the practice 81 tie advocates Of
phonetic spelling e get forth two
thingsa q ayioTS, and 70 build argu-
nents upon them - lp0n an assured
foundation. IN looking over a num.
her Of printed articles on the other
,ide Of this question VIC find that II Is
also the general custom Of the Oppo-
1ens Of phonetic spelling TO admit,
ilrectly or by implication, the truth
nd the automatic character of these
a%ssertions; but a closer study must
convince any one, VIC think, that the
things which are assumed 10 be axi-
Ems axe not only NJ ayioms. nut are
rot even true.
One Of these thing, is that English
spelling Is especially illogical and IN
phonetic, il we may Use the term for
.Sant Of u better; and the other is that
our spelling presents, both 70 children
nd to foreigners, . SOFT Of cruel and
nusual difficulty.
Ne readily admit that we have
many silent letters in English, and
nat our spelling is in some respects
.rbitrary; but we deny that it i great
- more SO than the French, : Ian
p,uage which is 50 generally learned
by Englismen, Germans, Russians,
Spaniards and Italians Of culture, that
i is regarded and used, both IN the
Diplomatic and in social intercourse,
- the common language Of commu-
nication between men Of different ma
lions. If French spelling, which Is
certainly not phonetic, ard which is
tlll Of silent letters, may be learned
% easily by foreigners, it Is difficult to
zee why like characteristics should
make English spelling unusually diff
AT Of requirement.
II il true, without dUuGt, that it is
rasier for an Englishman or q German
'5learn French than il Is for a French
nan 10 learn English, but the differ
cnce does not lie in the spelling alto
gether or even chiefly. The English,
ike the German, is a language with
n unusually large and varied vocabu-
AIRY, and it Is also IN irregular Ian
g1Rge in It's construction, SO that IL
you'd be q difficult one for foreigners
10 learn, even with the most absolute.
Iy phonetic spelling which the invent
US Of new alphabets can devise. We
hold stoutly to the main defense that
ne language Is Ours, and that foreign
rs have no rights whatever with re,
speCt TO it; that II they wish to learn
II they must encounter all the difficult
lies which the language, Gs We English
speaking folk use it, presents; but a
me same time we fail to discover thai
Cur spelling stands seriously in thu
Jay Of our learning it.
The fact is that intelligent foreign
rs do learn English spelling mucl
more thoroughly and much NOR
easily then they learn English pro
ANNEXATION even when they livI
among English speaking people. Edu
Gated Frenchmen who know Englisl
10, as a rule, spell correctly and with
out difficulty, as every editor knows
While not one in hundred even ate
years Of life among English people
pronounce our words well. We talket
recently with a Frenchman VIII,
writes English not only correctly as t
spelling, but elegantly in point q
construction, who has not as yet learn
I'd to speak sufficiently well to be un
derstOOd with tOlerable ease. 1t ]
clear that the chief difficulty whicI
English presented to him was not il
any way due to its spelling.
Scores Of instances within ever,
unan's observation confirm this, an,
as to the difficulty which childre
have in learning to spell, it would b
easy to put forth still stronger facts
contradiction. 1t is enough to kno'
that even our common schools succee
in teaching boys and girls to spell CO.
rectly all the words, or nearly all,
which they know the meaning, an
that men generally, who have had
plain school training, write the ll
guage with fewer errors in spelin
than in cOnstruction-in other word
that they have mastered the spelliT
better than they have learned the la
gGage itself,