English orthography

Letters in English orthography usually represent a particular sound (phoneme). For example, the word cat /ˈkæt/ consists of three letters ⟨c⟩, ⟨a⟩, and ⟨t⟩, in which ⟨c⟩ represents the sound /k/, ⟨a⟩ the sound /æ/, and ⟨t⟩ the sound /t/.

Sequences of letters may perform this role as well as single letters. Thus, in the word ship (pronounced /ˈʃɪp/), the digraph ⟨sh⟩ (two letters) represents the sound /ʃ/. In the word ditch, the trigraph ⟨tch⟩ represents the sound /tʃ/.

Less commonly, a single letter can represent multiple successive sounds. The most common example is the letter ⟨x⟩, which normally represents the consonant cluster /ks/ (for example, in the word six, pronounced /ˈsɪks/).

The same letter (or sequence of letters) may be pronounced in different ways when it occurs in different positions within a word. For instance, the digraph ⟨gh⟩ represents the sound /f/ at the end of some words, such as rough /ˈrʌf/, though not in others (though /ˈðoʊ/). At the beginning of syllables (i.e. the syllable onset), the digraph ⟨gh⟩ is pronounced /ɡ/, as in the word ghost (pronounced /ˈɡoʊst/). Conversely, the digraph ⟨gh⟩ is never pronounced /f/ in syllable onsets other than in inflected forms, and is almost never pronounced /ɡ/ in syllable codas (the proper name Pittsburgh is an exception).

Some words contain silent letters, which do not represent any sound in modern English pronunciation. Examples include the ⟨b⟩ in doubt, debt, dumb, etc., the ⟨p⟩ in psychology and pneumatic, ⟨gh⟩ as mentioned above in numerous words such as though, daughter, night, brought, and the commonly encountered silent ⟨e⟩ (discussed further below).

Another type of spelling characteristic is related to word origin. For example, when representing a vowel, the letter ⟨y⟩ represents the sound /ɪ/ in some words borrowed from Greek (reflecting an original upsilon), whereas the letter usually representing this sound in non-Greek words is the letter ⟨i⟩. Thus, the word myth /ˈmɪθ/ is of Greek origin, while pith /ˈpɪθ/ is a Germanic word.

Other examples include ⟨ph⟩ pronounced /f/ (which is usually spelled ⟨f⟩), and ⟨ch⟩ pronounced /k/ (which is usually spelled ⟨c⟩ or ⟨k⟩) – the use of these spellings for these sounds often mark words that have been borrowed from Greek.

Some researchers, such as Brengelman (1970), have suggested that, in addition to this marking of word origin, these spellings indicate a more formal level of style or register in a given text, although Rollings (2004) finds this point to be exaggerated as there would be many exceptions where a word with one of these spellings, such as ⟨ph⟩ for /f/ (like telephone), could occur in an informal text.

Spelling may also be useful to distinguish between homophones (words with the same pronunciation but different meanings), although in most cases the reason for the difference is historical and was not introduced for the purpose of making a distinction.

For example, the words heir and air are pronounced identically in most dialects, but in writing they are distinguished from each other by their different spellings.

Another example is the pair of homophones pain and pane, where both are pronounced /peɪn/ but have two different spellings of the vowel /eɪ/. Often this is because of the historical pronunciation of each word where, over time, two separate sounds become the same but the different spellings remain: pain used to be pronounced as /pain/, with a diphthong, and pane as /peːn/, but the diphthong /ai/ merged with the long vowel /eː/ in pane, making pain and pane homophones (pane–pain merger). Later /eː/ became a diphthong /eɪ/.

In written language, this may help to resolve potential ambiguities that would arise otherwise (cf. He's breaking the car vs. He's braking the car).

Nevertheless, many homophones remain that are unresolved by spelling (for example, the word bay has at least five fundamentally different meanings).

Some letters in English provide information about the pronunciation of other letters in the word. Rollings (2004) uses the term "markers" for such letters. Letters may mark different types of information.

For instance, the letter ⟨e⟩ in the word cottage /ˈkɒtɪdʒ/ indicates that the preceding ⟨g⟩ is pronounced /dʒ/, rather than the more common value of ⟨g⟩ in word-final position as the sound /ɡ/, such as in tag /ˈtæɡ/.

The letter ⟨e⟩ also often marks an altered pronunciation of a preceding vowel. In the pair ban and bane, the ⟨a⟩ of ban has the value /æ/, whereas the ⟨a⟩ of bane is marked by the ⟨e⟩ as having the value /eɪ/. In this context, the ⟨e⟩ is not pronounced, and is referred to as "silent e".

A single letter may even fill multiple pronunciation-marking roles simultaneously. For example, in the word wage, the ⟨e⟩ marks not only the change of the ⟨a⟩ from /æ/ to /eɪ/, but also of the ⟨g⟩ from /ɡ/ to /dʒ/. In the word vague, the ⟨e⟩ marks the long a sound, but the ⟨u⟩ keeps the g hard rather than soft.

Doubled consonants usually indicate that the preceding vowel is pronounced short. For example, the doubled ⟨t⟩ in latter indicates that the ⟨a⟩ is pronounced /æ/, while the single ⟨t⟩ of later gives /eɪ/. Doubled consonants only indicate any lengthening or gemination of the consonant sound itself when they come from different morphemes, as with the ⟨nn⟩ in unnatural = un+natural.

A given letter (or letters) may have dual functions. For example, the letter ⟨i⟩ in the word cinema has a sound-representing function (representing the sound /ɪ/) and a pronunciation-marking function (marking the ⟨c⟩ as having the value /s/ opposed to the value /k/).

Like many other alphabetic orthographies, English spelling does not represent non-contrastive phonetic sounds (that is, minor differences in pronunciation which are not used to distinguish between different words).

Although the letter ⟨t⟩ is pronounced by some speakers with aspiration [tʰ] at the beginning of words, this is never indicated in the spelling, and, indeed, this phonetic detail is probably not noticeable to the average native speaker not trained in phonetics.

However, unlike some orthographies, English orthography often represents a very abstract underlying representation (or morphophonemic form) of English words.[7]

[T]he postulated underlying forms are systematically related to the conventional orthography ... and are, as is well known, related to the underlying forms of a much earlier historical stage of the language. There has, in other words, been little change in lexical representation since Middle English, and, consequently, we would expect ... that lexical representation would differ very little from dialect to dialect in Modern English ... [and] that conventional orthography is probably fairly close to optimal for all modern English dialects, as well as for the attested dialects of the past several hundred years.[8]

In these cases, a given morpheme (i.e. a component of a word) has a fixed spelling even though it is pronounced differently in different words. An example is the past tense suffix -⟨ed⟩, which may be pronounced variously as /t/, /d/, or /ᵻd/[9] (for example, dip /ˈdɪp/, dipped /ˈdɪpt/, boom /ˈbuːm/, boomed /ˈbuːmd/, loot /ˈluːt/, looted /ˈluːtᵻd/). As it happens, these different pronunciations of -⟨ed⟩ can be predicted by a few phonological rules, but that is not the reason why its spelling is fixed.

Another example involves the vowel differences (with accompanying stress pattern changes) in several related words. For instance, the word photographer is derived from the word photograph by adding the derivational suffix -⟨er⟩. When this suffix is added, the vowel pronunciations change largely owing to the moveable stress:

Other examples of this type are the -⟨ity⟩ suffix (as in agile vs agility, acid vs acidity, divine vs divinity, sane vs sanity). See also: Trisyllabic laxing.

Another such class of words includes sign /ˈsaɪn/ and bomb /ˈbɒm/ with "silent" letters ⟨g⟩ and ⟨b⟩, respectively. However, in the related words signature and bombard these letters are pronounced /ˈsɪɡnətʃər/ and /bɒmˈbɑːrd/, respectively. Here it could be argued that the underlying representation of sign and bomb is |saɪɡn| and |bɒmb|, in which the underlying |ɡ| and |b| are only pronounced in the surface forms when followed by certain suffixes (-⟨ature⟩, -⟨ard⟩). Otherwise, the |ɡ| and |b| are not realised in the surface pronunciation (e.g. when standing alone, or when followed by suffixes like -⟨ing⟩ or -⟨er⟩). In these cases, the orthography indicates the underlying consonants that are present in certain words but are absent in other related words.

Other examples include the ⟨t⟩ in fast /ˈfɑːst/ and fasten /ˈfɑːsən/, and the ⟨h⟩ in heir /ˈɛər/ and inherit /ɪnˈhɛrɪt/.

Another example includes words like mean /ˈmiːn/ and meant /ˈmɛnt/. Here the vowel spelling ⟨ea⟩ is pronounced differently in the two related words. Thus, again the orthography uses only a single spelling that corresponds to the single morphemic form rather than to the surface phonological form.

English orthography does not always provide an underlying representation; sometimes it provides an intermediate representation between the underlying form and the surface pronunciation. This is the case with the spelling of the regular plural morpheme, which is written as either -⟨s⟩ (as in tick, ticks and mite, mites) or -⟨es⟩ (as in box, boxes). Here the spelling -⟨s⟩ is pronounced either /s/ or /z/ (depending on the environment, e.g. ticks /ˈtɪks/ and pigs /ˈpɪɡz/) while -⟨es⟩ is usually pronounced /ᵻz/[9] (e.g. boxes /ˈbɒksᵻz/). Thus, there are two different spellings that correspond to the single underlying representation |z| of the plural suffix and the three surface forms. The spelling indicates the insertion of /ᵻ/ before the /z/ in the spelling -⟨es⟩, but does not indicate the devoiced /s/ distinctly from the unaffected /z/ in the spelling -⟨s⟩.

The abstract representation of words as indicated by the orthography can be considered advantageous since it makes etymological relationships more apparent to English readers. This makes writing English more complex, but arguably makes reading English more efficient.[10] However, very abstract underlying representations, such as that of Chomsky & Halle (1968) or of underspecification theories, are sometimes considered too abstract to accurately reflect the communicative competence of native speakers. Followers of these arguments believe the less abstract surface forms are more "psychologically real" and thus more useful in terms of pedagogy.[11]

Inconsistencies and irregularities in English pronunciation and spelling have gradually increased in number throughout the history of the English language. There are a number of contributing factors. First, gradual changes in pronunciation, such as the Great Vowel Shift, account for a tremendous number of irregularities. Second, relatively recent loan words from other languages generally carry their original spellings, which are often not phonetic in English. The Romanization of languages (e.g., Chinese) using alphabets derived from the Latin alphabet has further complicated this problem, for example when pronouncing Chinese proper names (of people or places).

The regular spelling system of Old English was swept away by the Norman Conquest, and English itself was supplanted in some spheres by Norman French for three centuries, eventually emerging with its spelling much influenced by French. English had also borrowed large numbers of words from French, which naturally kept their French spellings as there was no reason or mechanism to change them. The spelling of Middle English, such as in the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, is very irregular and inconsistent, with the same word being spelled in different ways, sometimes even in the same sentence. However, these were generally much better guides to the then pronunciation than modern English spelling is.

For example, the sound /ʌ/, normally written u, is spelled with an o in son, love, come, etc., due to Norman spelling conventions which prohibited writing u before v, m, n due to the graphical confusion that would result. (v, u, n were identically written with two minims in Norman handwriting; w was written as two u letters; m was written with three minims, hence mm looked like vun, nvu, uvu, etc.). Similarly, spelling conventions also prohibited final v. Hence the identical spellings of the three different vowel sounds in love, grove and prove are due to ambiguity in the Middle English spelling system, not sound change.

In 1417 Henry V began using English for official correspondence, which had no standardised spelling, instead of Latin or French which had standardised spelling. For example, for the word right, Latin had one spelling, rectus; Old French as used in English law had six spellings; Middle English had 77 spellings. English, now used as the official replacement language for Latin and French, motivated writers to standardise spellings, an effort which lasted about 500 years.[19]

There was also a series of linguistic sound changes towards the end of this period, including the Great Vowel Shift, which resulted in the i in mine, for example, changing from a pure vowel to a diphthong. These changes for the most part did not detract from the rule-governed nature of the spelling system; but in some cases they introduced confusing inconsistencies, like the well-known example of the many pronunciations of ough (rough, through, though, trough, plough, etc.). Most of these changes happened before the arrival of printing in England. However, the arrival of the printing press froze the current system, rather than providing the impetus for a realignment of spelling with pronunciation. Furthermore, it introduced further inconsistencies, partly because of the use of typesetters trained abroad, particularly in the Low Countries. For example, the h in ghost was influenced by Dutch.[20] The addition and deletion of a silent e at the ends of words was also sometimes used to make the right-hand margin line up more neatly.[20]

By the time dictionaries were introduced in the mid 17th century, the spelling system of English had started to stabilise. By the 19th century, most words had set spellings, though it took some time before they diffused throughout the English-speaking world. In The Mill on the Floss (1860), English novelist George Eliot satirised the attitude of the English rural gentry of the 1820s towards orthography:

Mr. Tulliver did not willingly write a letter, and found the relation between spoken and written language, briefly known as spelling, one of the most puzzling things in this puzzling world. Nevertheless, like all fervid writing, the task was done in less time than usual, and if the spelling differed from Mrs. Glegg's,–why, she belonged, like himself, to a generation with whom spelling was a matter of private judgment.

The modern English spelling system, with its national variants, spread together with the expansion of public education later in the 19th century.

The most notorious group of letters in the English language, the ough tetragraph, can be pronounced in at least ten different ways, six of which are illustrated in the construct, Though the tough cough and hiccough plough him through, which is quoted by Robert A. Heinlein in The Door into Summer to illustrate the difficulties facing automated speech transcription and reading. The "ough" tetragraph, traditionally representing a pronunciation of roughly /ʊx/, is in fact a word in its own right, though rarely known or used: an exclamation of disgust similar to ugh. The following are typical pronunciations of this string of letters throughout English dialects of the world:

• /oʊ/ (as in toe) for though and dough
• /ʌf/ (as in cuff) for tough, rough, enough, and the name Hough
• /ɒf/ (as in off) for trough, cough, and Gough
• /uː/ (as in blue) for through
• /ɔː/ (as in caught) for thought, ought, sought, nought, brought, etc.
• /ə/ (as in comma) for thorough, borough, and names ending in -borough; however, American English pronounces this as /oʊ/
• /aʊ/ (as in cow) as in bough, sough, drought, plough (plow in North America), doughty, and the names Slough and Doughty

The following pronunciations are found in uncommon single words:

• hough: /ɒk/ (more commonly spelled "hock" now)
• hiccough (a now-uncommon variant of hiccup): /ʌp/ as in up (unique)
• lough: /ɒx/ with a velar fricative like the ch in loch, of which lough is an anglicised spelling

The place name Loughborough uses two different pronunciations of ough: the first ough has the sound as in cuff and the second rhymes with thorough.

In a generative approach to English spelling, Rollings (2004) identifies twenty main orthographic vowels of stressed syllables that are grouped into four main categories: "Lax", "Tense", "Heavy", "Tense-R". (As this classification is based on orthography, not all orthographic "lax" vowels are necessarily phonologically lax.)

For instance, the letter a can represent the lax vowel /æ/, tense /eɪ/, heavy /ɑː/, or (often allophonically) [ɛə] before |r|. Heavy and tense-r vowels are the respective lax and tense counterparts followed by the letter r.

Tense vowels are distinguished from lax vowels with a "silent" e letter that is added at the end of words. Thus, the letter a in hat is lax /æ/, but when the letter e is added in the word hate the letter a is tense /eɪ/. Similarly, heavy and tense-r vowels pattern together: the letters ar in car are heavy /ɑːr/, the letters ar followed by silent e in the word care are /ɛər/. The letter u represents two different vowel patterns, one being /ʌ/, /juː/, /ə/, /jʊ/, the other /ʊ/, /uː/, /ʊ/. There is no distinction between heavy and tense-r vowels with the letter o, and the letter u in the /ʊ-uː-ʊ/ pattern does not have a heavy vowel member.

Besides silent e, another strategy for indicating tense and tense-r vowels, is the addition of another orthographic vowel forming a digraph. In this case, the first vowel is usually the main vowel while the second vowel is the "marking" vowel. For example, the word man has a lax a pronounced /æ/, but with the addition of i (as the digraph ai) in the word main the a is marked as tense and pronounced /eɪ/. These two strategies produce words that are spelled differently but pronounced identically, as in mane (silent e strategy), main (digraph strategy) and Maine (both strategies). The use of two different strategies relates to the function of distinguishing between words that would otherwise be homonyms.

Besides the 20 basic vowel spellings, Rollings (2004) has a reduced vowel category (representing the sounds /ə, ɪ/) and a miscellaneous category (representing the sounds /ɔɪ, aʊ, aɪ/ and /j/+V, /w/+V, V+V).

To reduce dialectal difficulties, the sound values given here correspond to the conventions at Help:IPA/English. This table includes H, W and Y when they represent vowel sounds. If no information is given, it is assumed that the vowel is in a stressed syllable.

Deriving the pronunciation of an English word from its spelling requires not only a careful knowledge of the rules given below (many of which are not explicitly known even by native speakers: speakers merely learn the spelling of a word along with its pronunciation) and their many exceptions, but also:

• a knowledge of which syllables are stressed and which are unstressed (not derivable from the spelling: compare hallow and allow)
• which combinations of vowels represent monosyllables and which represent disyllables (ditto: compare waive and naive, creature and creator)

Notes:

• In the tables, the hyphen has two different meanings. A hyphen after the letter indicates that it must be at the beginning of a syllable, e.g. j- in jumper and ajar. A hyphen before the letter indicates that it cannot be at the beginning of a word, e.g. -ck in sick and ticket.
• More specific rules take precedence over more general ones, e.g. "c- before e, i or y" takes precedence over "c".
• Where the letter combination is described as "word-final", inflectional suffixes may be added without changing the pronunciation, e.g. catalogues.
• The dialect used is RP.
• Isolated foreign borrowings are excluded.

† Nearly 80% of Americans pronounce "luxurious" with /ɡʒ/, while two thirds of British people use /kʒ/. Half the American speakers pronounce "luxury" as /ˈlʌɡʒəri/, the rest says /ˈlʌkʃəri/[25]
†† About half of both British and American speakers say /ˈɛksɪt/, the other half says /ˈɛɡzɪt/.[25]

* According to the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 75% of Americans pronounce "almond" as /ˈɑːlmənd/.
† Where GA distinguishes between /ɑː/ and /ɔː/ in the letter combination ong, RP only has the vowel /ɒ/

The following table shows for each sound the various spelling patterns used to denote it, starting with the prototypical pattern(s) followed by others in alphabetical order. Some of these patterns are very rare or unique (such as "gh" for /p/, "ph" for /v/, "i" for /ɑː/). An ellipsis ("...") stands for an intervening consonant.

Arranged in the order of the IPA consonant tables.